1 Introduction
The topic of the present paper is situated between two strong perspectives found in studies on the history of political ideas in Hungary. On the one hand, reflections on political concepts in seventeenth-century Hungary are dominated by contextual methodology. According to the mainstream of research, political individuals are defined by their representations in the social space, whether in terms of secular Machiavellianism/Tacitism1 or in the manner of self-representation found in Protestant martyrology.2 For the latter interpretation, political concepts affecting individualsâ actions of the period, such as patriotism,3 power and obedience, are available through the reconstruction of strategies that articulate the individualâs social representation. Consequently, the chief sources for the history of political ideas are texts that reflect on political agency within the hard facts of political history â allusions to natural law are instrumentalized under factual political aims.4 On the other hand, there is an established branch of studies on the legal thinking of Hungarian authors within the framework of practical and theoretical jurisprudence in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Habsburg Empire.5 In the latter perspective, the Enlightenment tradition of natural law proves to be an organic part of the history of political ideas â but the relevant sources only emerged in the mid-eighteenth century. The paradigm shift between the two perspectives draws our attention to the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, raising the question: Had there really been no signs of the reception of the GrotianâHobbesianâPufendorfian paradigm before it became an essential part of law studies at universities in the mid-eighteenth century?6
My paper is an attempt to offer a case study of the Hungarian reception of modern natural law tradition in the early eighteenth century through a reconstruction of the theoretical claims developed in MikloÌs Bethlenâs7 Preface to his extended Autobiography8 in 1708. I contend that Bethlen was deeply influenced by the idea of natural law, as well as by the problems perceived by contemporaries related to this theoretical construction. I suggest that Bethlen did not unreservedly accept the theory of natural law as an ultimate explanation of the human social community. However, his themes (public communication, reputation, honour, shame and ambition as political passions) are clearly situated within the theoretical language established by classic authors of the Enlightenment natural law tradition.
Bethlenâs text is part of a very special literary genre. Unlike sources analysed by other papers in this volume, it is neither a school text used to educate future lawyers or public officials nor a scientific work composed with the aim of a scholarly exchange of ideas on natural jurisprudence. Bethlen introduces his thoughts in his Preface as a kind of philosophico-theological treatise to provide readers of the extended narration of his life with the theoretical device of a body politic in which his political activity took place. Before going into detail on his concept of human society, let us familiarize ourselves with some information on his biography to enable us to sketch the intellectual milieu surrounding him.
MikloÌs Bethlen was born in 1642 to one of the most ancient families in the Transylvanian high nobility. Members of his family played an important role in early modern Transylvania throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, struggling in the political arena between the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. Bethlen grew up in the immediate circle of Transylvanian princes in an exclusive group of youths of the same high social background. In the 1650s, he listened to lectures held in Cluj by JaÌnos ApaÌczai Csere, a scholar known as the first Cartesian thinker in Hungary.9
Between 1661 and 1663, Bethlen attended the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the Universities of Utrecht and Leiden in the Low Countries. He had studied with ApaÌczai Csere, a Ramist-Cartesian, in 1659, and, not long after the death of his teacher, he heard lectures held by the young Samuel Pufendorf in Heidelberg over the summer of 1661.10 Bethlen mentions his German professor in the usual laconic manner of the Autobiography. Nevertheless, he does not fail to note that the young Pufendorf lectured on Grotiusâs masterwork De jure belli ac pacis.11 One cannot overestimate the striking difference in intellectual milieu between Transylvania and Heidelberg; while attending Pufendorfâs lectures, Bethlen must have immediately experienced his professorâs most intensive dilemmas on a priori mathematical argumentation as opposed to an historical argumentation for the theory of natural law or on the removal of moral theology from the realm of natural rights.12
The other setting for his higher education was the Low Countries. He attended both public and private lectures held by leading intellectuals, who belonged either to the philosophical movement of Cartesianism13 (Johannes de Raey and Henry de Roy) or to the theological camp of Cocceianism14 (Frans Burman, Abraham Heidanus and Johannes Cocceius himself). Bethlen acquired his basic cultural identity as a Reformed Cartesian in Utrecht and Leiden, due to the decisive role played by intellectuals in the Low Countries in the emergence of Cartesian philosophy within the mainstream of contemporary philosophical reflections.
After his studies, Bethlen became one of the most prominent politicians of his time, that is, of the last decades of Ottoman rule in Hungary and Transylvania and the first decade of their integration into the Habsburg Empire. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole history of Hungary and Transylvania between 1660 and 1704 can be described through the footnotes to his autobiography.15 His main political achievement was Diploma Leopoldinum (1691), which declared the legal status of the Principality of Transylvania within the Habsburg Empire after its liberation from Ottoman rule.16 In the course of his negotiations with Emperor Leopold I, Bethlen succeeded in securing guarantees for a much more liberal legal status than had previously been expected.17 The regulations in Diploma proved to be enduring. Indeed, they remained in force until the revolutionary events of 1848.
It is more than puzzling that the only text that provides us with the possibility of reconstructing his philosophical ideas was written in the very late period of his life; Bethlen remained silent on philosophical matters until 1708, when, after he had been arrested in 1704 on a charge of high treason,18 he was moved from Sibiu to Vienna. He was imprisoned along the way for a number of weeks in May of 1708 in Osijek. According to his own account, he composed the Preface to his Autobiography here, as he produced the rest of the manuscript containing the extended narration of his own life later while imprisoned in Vienna during the years 1708 to 1710.
The basic context for Bethlenâs approach to natural law is provided by his interpretation of phenomena in social psychology, such as honour, shame and ambition. In a somewhat Hobbesian way, Bethlen makes these psychological phenomena closely dependent on speech acts in the public sphere of the community. To gain a better insight into the interrelated topics of social psychology and the public use of speech in Bethlenâs thought, we must analyse his account of reputation (esteem expressed through signs of speech) as the most fundamental linguistic entity of intersubjective relations. Further, to describe communicative speech performances, we must turn to certain topics in the philosophy of mind which underpin Bethlenâs conceptions of public speech acts and social psychology. In line with this scheme, I have divided my paper into five sections. After accounting briefly for Bethlenâs views on the philosophy of mind (Sec. 1), I will provide an outline of his definition of reputation and civic-moral qualities (Sec. 2) and of his description of honour, shame and ambition as eminent moral qualities (Sec. 3) embedded in a theory of natural passions (Sec. 4); afterwards, I close my paper with short conclusion (Sec. 5).
2 Philosophy of Mind
Does not even the simplest of men experience this within himself; if his mind is fixed on something, he knows nothing about whatever he may hear or see apart from that which he then perceives. Indeed, he often does not know whether or not he has said that to which his tongue is accustomed; he may say a prayer or whatever, but his mind is far away. Sometimes he will even speak to another and answer, but he will not know of it when questioned later, and it will merely seem like a familiar dream that comes to mind. This everyone may experience best of all in church, during the divine service, when repeating a prayer after the preacher or listening to a sermon; if oneâs soul is far away, one will know nothing of what oneâs tongue is saying or oneâs ears are hearing, but one will be perfectly well aware of that which oneâs mind has perceived.19
According to Bethlenâs conviction, social behaviour among individual agents in a society lacks conscious reflection in general or is realised at a very low level of consciousness at best. Speech performances as paradigmatic examples of social behaviour are no exceptions to this thesis. The problem stated here in Bethlenâs passage is one central to Cartesian philosophy. According to the new Cartesian physiology, there are cases of human behaviour that can be accounted for without the supposition of a soul determining them. The sharp distinction between the mind, described as res cogitans, and the mechanical world, described as res extensa, assures the entirely mechanical interpretation of sensual enticements of the human body and the basic biological and physical responses the human body gives to them as reflections. For an explanation of this responsive ability of the extended human body, there is no need to suppose any kind of sensitive or vegetative function of the soul involved between the mechanical stimulus and the mechanical response.
However, Bethlen narrows the perspective of the problem: he treats this enticement-response relationship within the context of using language. We all learned the Cartesian lesson on the speaking automaton from Part 5 of Discours de la meÌthode (Leiden 1637).20 For Descartes, the ability to speak is a strong argument for the existence of an immaterial mind because we can account for the complicated structure of extended bodies of signs in a much more economical way by allowing for an immaterial mind producing it than by deriving it from an accidental realisation of the mechanical laws of nature. Bethlen â among several thinkers of his time â does not accept Descartesâs view. Bethlenâs example is an automatically praying man whose mind is intended for an entirely different object than the content expressed and whose mind directs the bodily organs to perform a speech act without consciousness.21 Bethlen introduces two solutions for this problem. According to his vitalistic solution,22 there is a sensual soul which moves the speaking organs without being conscious of the content of the prayer, that is, without the operation of the spiritual mind. According to his mechanistic solution,23 the effect on the ears, the enticement of the âstrings of the bodyâ up to the brain, and the reverse causal line from the brain through the âbodily stringsâ down to the speaking organs is an entirely mechanical movement that lacks any intervention of any kind of soul or mind. Bethlen does not deny that humans have an immaterial mind, nor does he specify its mode of existence or argue for it based on the human ability to speak. For our present purpose, only the result of these investigations is of any importance: human speaking and communication, as well as other types of social behaviour, are characterised by only a very low level of consciousness. Human use of linguistic signs is a kind of mechanical or vitalistic process.
3 Reputation and Moral Qualities
Having in mind Bethlenâs theory of speech acts as almost unconscious social behaviour, now let us turn to his definition of reputation as a basic structural constituent of the public sphere of community. The Hungarian equivalent of âreputationâ is hıÌrneÌv, a compound word containing the elements hıÌr (roughly âmessageâ in English) and neÌv (ânameâ in English). Bethlen splits the two elements of the compound word and defines them separately. He introduces the definition of ânameâ as follows:24
A name is
I. a sign invented and contrived
I.1 for the distinguishing of one person or thing from another and
I.2 for the better cognition of it and
I.3 for having it acknowledged by another person, such as God, angel, man, sky, earth, sea, horse, ox; the distinct name and surname of countries, towns and people;
II. the description, the name of a town, a village or any mark that separates them from each other, respectively;
III. these all are but signs that help you and me to make our minds able to think of those [things] and to communicate our thoughts concerning them to each other as far as it is necessary.25
The definition reflects a conception of language which approaches the properties of language from a communicative perspective and which makes epistemology dependent on using it. Names are means for the epistemological function of successfully distinguishing between and thinking about things, instead of expressing mental content accessible only privately to separate individuals. Bethlenâs definition of ânameâ shows Hobbesian leanings in its emphasis on communication vis-aÌ-vis linguistic meaning and reference.26
Bethlen applies this conception of ânameâ to his views on reputation.
IV. This name is only a word, as is reputation, neither the reputation nor the name which we give to a certain person, or which we think, speak or write concerning him/her,
(IV.1) causes or produces any quality, reality or change; without it, he/she remains constantly in the condition given to him/her by God without any decrease, as long as, that is to say, the reputation and name of the given person uttered by another remain within the bounds of sincere, real simplicity of reputation and name.
(IV.2) But when the tongue goes beyond it, as James the Apostle finely describes in chapter 3, then the person spoken of begins to suffer and to be affected as good or evil are spoken of him, and in this way his advancement either aided or impeded in the condition given to him/her by God. And thence there come into the world these words and moral or civic qualities [moraÌlis vagy civilis qualitasi] of men: good or bad reputation, reproach, slander, scold, accusation or praise, honour, dignity, and good or bad remembrance in their lives as well as after their deaths. These, when later they become reality and actions affecting men, cause progress or hindrance and ruining of the personâs life, property, freedom, peace and health either by the speaker or by those to whom he speaks; now that is good or bad reputation which one must desire or evade.27
The distinction between IV.1 and IV.2 seems to introduce a kind of differentiation between natural and social status. Reputation in the first sense has no causal capacity to influence the physical state of the person contained in the message of reputation. âReputationâ and ânameâ are merely words â as such, they cannot stand in a causal relationship with the physical world. The meaning implied by âreputationâ cannot cause any change in the state of the individual existing in the physical world: it does not âcause or produce any quality, reality or changeâ in the person. This causal inefficacy presupposes that the meaning of âreputationâ must remain within the bounds of its sincere, real simplicity: Bethlen deduces this inefficacy from a kind of moral straightforwardness of the speaker. Even if Bethlen attributes some sort of reality to this straightforward simplicity, the ontological status of the meaning of âreputationâ is strictly separated from the physical world: it cannot impose a causal effect on physical reality â and, conversely, it cannot be affected by physical entities.
In a second step, Bethlen exceeds this ideal framework of private communication with a rather obscure formulation: âthe tongue goes beyond it.â In this sense, the meaning spills over its original borders constituted within private communication and affects the person contained in the message of reputation. This effect proves to be twofold: the person in question can be aided or impeded by the content of reputation. Bethlen supplies an accurate description of the ontological status of these bizarre entities which can influence the physical state of the rumoured individual: they are âmoral or civic qualitiesâ carried by communicative speech acts in a society. Although these qualities, i.e. âa good or bad reputation, reproach, slander, scold, accusation, or praise, honour, dignity etc.,â are not physical items; they can still be manifested in the physical world as real actions. As a result of the causal impact of reputation, some changes will be induced in the physical state of the person: his/her well-being, property and health undergo some changes â and Bethlen seems to speak about the personâs freedom or peace in this physical sense as well. This causal mechanism depends on the participants of the communicative situation in various ways: the positive or negative effect can be induced by the speaker as well as by the recipient of the message. Further, the causal context of these moral or civic qualities makes the person, a subject of rumour or reputation, articulate his own strategy in society: ânow that is good or bad reputation which one must desire or evade.â
The key term âmoral or civic qualitiesâ in this passage is clearly of Pufendorfian origin. As noted above, Bethlen attended the young Pufendorfâs lectures on Grotiusâs De jure belli ac pacis in Heidelberg during the 1661 academic year. At this time, Pufendorf had just published his first important work Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis,28 in which the theory of moral qualities had already been elaborated.29 But Bethlenâs theory does not seem to match Pufendorfâs conception of sociality. The German scholar considers moral status parallel to a physical world in which moral substances are imposed on physical bodies and carry the civic-moral qualities of power (potestas), right (jus) and obligation (obligatio).30 Despite all the references Pufendorf makes in the direction of social psychology,31 moral qualities essentially function as subjects of deductive inferences of social philosophy.32 Bethlen presupposes public speech acts for the genesis of moral qualities; Pufendorf rather emphasises the mental act of their imposition by social agents. Pufendorf never developed any articulated theory of mind33 but clearly presupposes a much higher level of consciousness of social behaviour34 than Bethlen.
As regards the use of language, Pufendorf follows the Grotian topic of natural obligations of speech. Straightforwardness in communication is a basic natural obligation among humans. Although exceptional cases â such as danger to oneâs own life â may revoke this rule, the natural obligation of straightforward communication of mental contents and intentions attributes moral truth value to our utterances â despite logical truth consisting in the correspondence between words and things on a fundamental level. The idea of moral truth value enables Pufendorf to introduce a kind of criterion of truth into the social context of communication:
From these Principals and fundamental Rules, it is easy to understand both the Nature of Truth, which Men are obliged to speak and profess; and the Nature of Lye, which is so abhorrâd by all the good and honest, and the imputation of which every Man looks on as the foulest Disgrace.35
On the other side of this obligation of honest speech appears the right of the recipient to understand the speaker. Pufendorf aims at expounding these natural obligations and rights related to human communication. The role of speech performances played in the imposition of moral qualities is not central to Pufendorfâs theory of language; or, at least, it is a matter of interpretation to explain the degree to which moral epistemology is dependent on the public use of speech.36
Bethlen seems to occupy an indifferent position on the Pufendorfian-Grotian natural conditions of social communication, even if he couples the genesis of civic-moral qualities with a conventional use of language in intersubjective human relations. Instead of treating the problem of the truth value of reputation,37 Bethlen establishes a narrow relationship between public speech acts and moral epistemology. Use of language is void of truth value: performative speech acts simply produce physically effective civic-moral qualities. The distinction between the ineffective simplicity of reputation in private communication, on the one hand (IV.1), and the reputationâs transcending this original situation, on the other (IV.2), does not imply the truth of reputation in the former case and in the falsity of reputation in the latter. Bethlenâs distinction rests on the difference of causal deficiency in the former and effectiveness in the latter. A true or false reputation may as well induce physical changes as not. This, of course, is in harmony with Bethlenâs conception of the low-level consciousness of speech acts: Pufendorfâs natural obligation of straightforwardness presupposes a high level of consciousness of human utterances. Timothy J. Hochstrasser pointed out very convincingly how the late Pufendorf emphasised that only an adult with complete speech competence is able to perform communicative speech acts that are bearers of the imposition of the entities of moral sphere. This is the reason why Pufendorf rejected a strong innate theory of natural law: recognising natural law presupposes a conscious use of language. According to an innate theory of natural law, children should be aware of the complete knowledge of natural law â which contradicts the plain fact of experience that children learn language gradually.
Against this background, Bethlenâs use of the Pufendorfian term âmoral or civic qualitiesâ cannot imply acceptance of the German scholarâs political theory. The differences in the field of the philosophy of mind and concerning the problem of the true value of public human speech witness Bethlenâs essential departure from his masterâs doctrine in Heidelberg. However, the differences cannot be accounted for as simple misunderstandings, but rather as a kind of reinterpretation of the ontology proper to the Pufendorfian political and moral sphere. To gain a better insight into Bethlenâs reading of âmoral or civic qualities,â I suggest a simple intertextual experiment. Let us substitute the Pufendorfian expression âcivic and moral qualitiesâ for the Hobbesian phrase âmeans of powerâ in Bethlenâs text quoted above.
And thence there come into the world these words and means of power by men: good or bad reputation, reproach, slander, scold, accusation or praise, honour, dignity, and good or bad remembrance in their lives as well as after their deaths.38
All that Bethlen explores under the Pufendorfian label of civic and moral qualities relates in fact the means of Hobbesian power as described from either a psychological or an intersubjective perspective in chapter 6 or 10 of Leviathan (1651) or in the introductory passages of De Cive (1642), respectively. Although Hobbesâs name is mentioned only once in the Preface to Elementa, the new edition of Pufendorfâs early publication identified no fewer than 27 passages where Pufendorf alludes either critically or affirmatively to Hobbes.39 Considering the Heidelberg lectures, attended by Bethlen in 1661, Pufendorf might have treated Hobbesâs philosophy in a more explicit way than he did in Elementa. Consequently, the German scholarâs lectures in Heidelberg could ultimately have supported Bethlen in implementing the Pufendorfian phrase âmoral or civic qualitiesâ with Hobbesian content. As regards Leviathan, in the chapters that introduce the psychological states of humans in the natural state, Hobbes did not yet proceed to his positive theory of a normative conception of absolute power â the preliminary discussions of phenomena in social psychology, particularly in the context of social communication, have the function of ideological critique. As later passages bear witness, Bethlen does not go on to accept the ultimately Hobbesian view on politics â however, the close relationship between social passions and interactions of language is a common feature in Bethlenâs and Hobbesâs thinking. Bethlenâs claim that civic and moral qualities promote or impede oneâs advancement in the human community implies a Hobbesian strategy of the individualâs survival among intersubjective relations prior to contractual relations. Individual advancement is expressed in the same way: âAlso, what quality soever maketh a man beloved, or feared of many; or the reputation of such quality, is Powerâ;40 consequently, Bethlenâs reputation is best characterised by the famous Hobbesian formulation: âReputation of power is power.â41
4 Honour, Shame and Ambition
Section Two of Bethlenâs Preface considered the maintenance of self-interest as dependent on civic-moral qualities. The individual â so to say â must survive in social interactions, and his survival demands a strategy of avoiding impediments or using opportunities provided by society. Bethlenâs main theme is not social peace or maintenance of a commonwealth; his theoretical interest is focused on the individual in society and not on the society of individuals constituted through the establishment of political authority.
Bethlen picks up the quality of honour from the series of civic-moral qualities that result in the definition of reputation: âAnd thence comes that lovely Helen or idol which the world worships under the name of honour.â42 In the first instance, Bethlen makes a distinction between secular and spiritual honour. Spiritual honour is explained theologically within the framework of trinitology: the Father honours in his Son the Sonâs honourable values; these values are emanated to the created world. Individuals possessing these values of divine origin are honoured by others who discover them in the former. Honoured individuals honour in turn those others because they observe the fact that their honoured values are not their own but are of divine origin. That is why spiritual honour is reciprocal: men cannot vindicate honoured values for themselves. The honoured persons do not deserve honour self-sufficiently, and, consequently, the honour directed upon them merits honour in return.
This spiritual honour demands that humans meet overly strict requirements. After some passages, Bethlen leaves these strict theological demands behind and makes secular honour his main subject. Honour is expressed with outward signs that may as well be non-linguistic signs, such as letting someone enter a place ahead of one and bending oneâs knees. However, fear, silent hearkening, obedience and recognition of political power over the individual (expressed by the Hungarian term uralaÌs43 ) are all among the sensual manifestations of honour. Linguistic expressions of honour are paradigmatically honouring speech, praise, flattery and ascribing social labels.
Bethlen introduces shame and ambition as some kinds of meta-passions of honour:
From these [i.e. from oneâs honour from the perspective of others â JS] there arise and are born naturally in a man two things: amibitio or generositas, gloriae cupido, which is the desire for favourable judgement upon him, and shame, disgrace, pudor, which is fear and horror of unfavourable judgement.44
Ambition and shame are passions related or superadded to socially constructed honour. They are affective extensions of civic-moral qualities: civic-moral qualities produce the passions of shame and ambition in the same mechanical way as if they were produced by performative speech acts. Shame and ambition function as a kind of emotional management of social honour and recognition. They aim to articulate an individual strategy which enables the social agent to avoid negative evaluations and to promote positive ones in others.
However, neither shame nor ambition as oneâs psychological disposition depends on whether the evaluative judgements of others are correct or false. Should my fellows in a society make a false judgement of my intended act, I will intend not to perform the act in question; that is, I will feel ashamed to do so as if the expected evaluations of my fellows in a society were right. According to Bethlen, the certainty of the ultimately correct judgement about myself made by my conscience is not so strong that it would be able to eliminate my naturally-felt shame caused by the expected unfavourable judgement of others, even if the latter is false. It is the same with ambition: Even if the morsel of conscience informs me correctly concerning the evil of my planned act in the future, I will ambitiously intend to perform it because of the expected favourable judgement of others in society. This is not Bethlenâs last word on the problem of naturally-felt shame and ambition, but before investigating them outside of the social context in the next section, let us remain within the bounds of human social status.
Honour and associated passions penetrate the whole society. Bethlen lists four levels on which honour determines the life of the human community.45 Social institutions, such as family and church, are based on honour, as well as the recognition of different types of practical knowledge in industrial society. Interestingly, the social institution of the church is deduced from the secular honour felt by the members of the church towards their superiors: the high claims of theological honour play no role in its legitimation.
The most important level is the relationship between political authority and political subjects. Empowerment of representatives of political authority, or any kind of political office, is based alone on their honour, felt and expressed by the political subjects. The subjects feel real honour toward them; this feeling entails the peopleâs hope and faith that the representatives not only have the qualities required for governance, but also the corresponding will to act according to these honoured qualities. Bethlenâs emphasis is on the holistic nature of honouring as political recognition: there is no possibility for the legitimation of political power other than deriving it from the politico-psychological phenomenon of honour. Therefore, the mechanical and causal series of unreflected speech performances â reputation â civic-moral qualities â honour and other social passions results in the legitimation of political authority.
However, the Hobbesian line of thinking on the human condition in its precontractarian perspective ends here. After quoting the famous claim of Cicero, âSalus populi suprema lexâ (Cicero, De legibus 3, 3, 8), Bethlen continues his Hungarian text in Latin:
Cuicumque et quomodocumque tandem populus in se dominandi supremam potestatem et suam erga illos obedientiam detulit, id cum suae salutis et summae majestatis penes se reservatione fecit.
Finally, to whomsoever and in whatever way the people have transferred the supreme power that he may rule over it and be obeyed by it, this the people have done with the reservation to itself of its own salvation and of the supreme majesty.46
Through the roundabout way of passions, Bethlen makes political authority completely dependent on the sovereignty of people. The idea of limiting the political power of the ruler by deducing suprema potestas from majestas populi reveals Bethlenâs sympathy for the Monarchomachsâ theory47 â one may suspect the influence of Johannes Althusius48 (1557â1638) in these lines.49 Even if Bethlen follows the Hobbesian method of reducing political behaviour to psycho-physiological states of humans, he nevertheless rejects the normative consequence of the unlimited power of political authority Hobbes drew from this method. Bethlenâs theory of political authority is not a normative one: he does not speak about certain conditions, the fulfilment of which grants a right or imposes a duty of resistance. Bethlenâs method is descriptive: if political subjects do not feel honour toward representatives of a political magistrate, they may resist and withdraw political legitimation.
So far, the line of thought remained within the boundaries of a positive political community that outlined a political psychology that underlies social life. If peopleâs sovereignty based on a political psychology of honour is apt to construct limitations against the political power of authority, then Bethlen has something to say about honour, shame and ambition as psychological states outside of a political community; that is, he must present a theory of these basic passions as natural endowments of mankind. This is exactly what happens in Part Eight of the Preface.
5 Natural Passions
Part Eight begins by establishing an optimistic anthropology. Historical evidence of consensus of all nations demonstrates that even original sin could not annihilate the basic moral distinction between good and bad, human conscience and belief in any kind of god. One of Bethlenâs most fascinating statements is that intellectual understanding functioning in the basic moral distinction relies on the affective capacity of men. The purpose of the present paper does not require a deeper analysis of this claim.
In accordance with the contemporary comparative studies of religions, in the fashion of Gerardus Joannes Vossius50 and Herbert of Cherbury,51 Bethlen states that all nations âadore stone, tree, snake and frog, rather than living without a god.â52 However, Bethlen changes the perspective immediately from the worship of phenomena in the physical world to the general features of political psychology.53
There is no nation on earth in which there is no worship, oath-taking, blessing, cursing [aÌtok], reproach [szitok], some slight modesty, glory, outrage, reward and punishment.54
The above thesis that social passions originate mechanically is settled within the framework of the psychological aspects of natural religion. Consequently, Bethlen directs his line of thinking to the borderline between positive social status and the natural condition of humans. One may suppose that the phenomena of social psychology exist only under the circumstances of a positive state of a commonwealth:
Now let us suppose that glory, outrage, reward and punishment are entirely human inventions for the maintenance of society.55
Bethlen expresses the volatile and unstable feature of these social emotions in describing reproach as âthe blazing up of the angry heart, as it were, the burning of a sooty chimney.â56 Here, we have the idea discussed above: inclination to glory is ambition towards expecting reward and honour because of acting in accordance with the interest of the common good or, as Bethlen puts it, âmaintenance of society.â Outrage, on the other hand, is punishment for violation of the interest of the common good. Should these emotions have their origin deep in human nature, the content of the common good directing them in a social context proves to be contingent in its very nature, or, as Bethlen writes, they âare entirely human inventions for the maintenance of society.â However, mere fear of punishment, in cases when the common good is violated, cannot account perfectly for feeling shame, nor can the hope of reward, in the case of acting in accordance with the common good, account perfectly for keeping promises in oath-taking.
Would there be worship, oath-taking, blessing and cursing if man did not believe in God, who has the power and the will, if you pray, to listen and come to your aid; to punish him that swears falsely; to implement blessing and cursing? For surely everyone knows that that is all merely words, the motion of the tongue and the air, and if there is none to give it power, it is all futility and the wind bears it away. Would he that swears have any regard for that or he to whom he swears, he that blesses or curses or those to whom these are directed? Would they make use of them? Would they fear them? If they had no faith in them. Would the powerful man who fears no punishment blush and feel ashamed where no one can see him if his conscience did not prick him?57
While leaving the positive social context behind, Bethlen arrives at the domain of the natural state of humans. Bethlen appeals to God as an occasional guarantor of the causal efficacy of speech performances, such as oath-taking, blessing or cursing. However, this does not mean that the occurrence of these social phenomena and speech behaviours beyond the positive legal state relies on supernatural moments of belief. An inclination towards pursuing honour or avoiding shameful actions represents natural endowments of mankind. Addressing the Hobbesian figure of the powerful individual in the natural state, Bethlen declares that he feels shame even if knowledge of society, negative evaluation and potential punishment for violating the common good are suspended. Therefore, shame proves to be not only an emotional management of esteem and honour in a community, but also an emotion which mirrors the non-conventional, natural order of values.
At first glance, Bethlenâs theory of natural passions seems to reiterate the traditional view of the correspondence between objective moral values and naturally-felt passions. Pufendorf argues explicitly against a theory of this kind in De jure naturae et gentium I, ii, 7, observing the general conviction that naturally-felt shame and its physical sign of blushing are proof of moral realism.58 According to Pufendorf, the psychological phenomena of shame and ambition are related to the pursuit of esteem in society, and, as such, they express conventional values. While denying the moral realism implicated by natural passions, Pufendorf concedes that it is not without reason that God implanted these passions in mankind. According to Pufendorf, the divine origin of human shame does not contradict his anti-realistic claim that they are expressions of values in a positive social state. Natural passions and their physical signs are beneficial for human society, but they only function within the boundaries of the moral space imposed by human agents. Every plausible interpretation of natural passions has to presuppose a human imposition of moral qualities, as well as the ontology of social phenomena built on it.
While relating shame and ambition to honour, Bethlen explicitly perceives the social context of shame. However, he seems to accept moral realism, while attributing an evaluative function to shame outside of society. However, the anti-intellectualistic vein of his argumentation prevents him from adopting a world view like that of the Thomists, who emphasised the intellectual capacity of humans to realise acts that further basic inclinations towards self-preservation, the propagation of the species and the rearing of offspring. Instead of Aristotelian inclinations towards social integration, Bethlen drew upon basic egotistical-psychological traits of societies at the doorstep of industrialisation â albeit in terms of natural religion.
In this sense, shame is strongly tied to conscience. Even if Bethlen introduced conscience as a natural faculty of humans with a theistic origin, without the condition of revealed religion, one might ask whether feeling shame beyond and independently of the conventional positive state of a community has its origin in the anthropological standard of original sin.
Bethlen, a devout Calvinist, is aware of this challenge of Augustinian theological anthropology and addresses the relationship between shame and original sin directly:
From this it is immediately apparent that the words of Moses are no fabula and that clothing is Adamâs invention, not only against warm or cool, but also against shame. [â¦] In vain and falsely have certain atheists and profaners postulated that Moses and others like him wished to obtain honour for themselves, domination over others and the obedience of the simple, and therefore invented God, the soul, heaven, hell etc.59
One should not be misguided by Bethlenâs apology of the Mosaic narrative against allegedly atheistic or profane interpretations. His vision of the relationship between shame and original sin is entirely rational and part of Enlightenment thinking. It is not the Mosaic law, which provides us with a theological interpretation of natural shame; it is the rational theory of naturally-felt shame which justifies the truth of the inspired Mosaic narrative of Adamâs fall. In other words, we do not feel shame beyond social conventions because we are heirs to the theologically established original sin, but we as Christians inherit original sin because we, like members of other confessions, are naturally ashamed to perform various acts. Bethlen explores a thin area for shame as a natural emotion between the robust interpretative perspectives of social psychology and theological anthropology. He does not deny that one may feel shame because he or she experiences dishonour from his or her fellow citizens, and he does not rule out the possibility that one has a bad conscience while feeling shame. It is rather the natural emotion of shame which allows for shame as an individual strategy for avoiding dishonour in society and for upholding the truth of the Mosaic narrative of Adamâs feeling of shame after the Fall.
Therefore, the mechanistic interpretation of passions relies on a religious anthropology outside of society. Bethlen develops his idea of natural religion against a double background of desire for honour in ancient religions and in the present human condition.
First, the main feature of this basic instinct contains the desire to be honoured even after oneâs death in the ancient pagan world. Bethlen agrees with Pierre Bayleâs famous essay PenseÌes diverses sur la comeÌte60 that this expectation is a false one: after oneâs death, the surviving soul will not be affected through the honour of people living in this physical world. However, Bayle and Bethlen draw different conclusions from this view. While Bayle holds that an atheist would pursue honour just like a pagan or a Christian believer, without the hope of being affected by worldly honour after death, Bethlen maintains that the very fact of pursuing honour has natural theistic presuppositions. For him, the present-time passion to secure honour after death through building monuments etc. has in fact existed in humans in the past. This anthropological standard of mankind has a religious character, as it presupposes a belief in the survival of oneâs soul after death, even if the conception of the immortal soulâs being affected by earthly affairs is a false one.61
What the present human condition concerns, the passion of shame for those in power, independent of prospects of social punishment, does not destroy the human instinct of pursuing honour. In this sense, natural shame is driven by a kind of eschatological recognition, whereby the scene of honour is changed from human society to the relationship between God and man. Bethlen never seems to forsake human selfishness: even the individual feeling shame outside of a community is driven by his desire to be honoured by God.62
6 Conclusion
Bethlenâs intellectual life was situated at the crossroads of two types of Enlightenment. First, he became involved in the cultural and political life of the De Witt brothersâ Low Countries during his university studies in the early 1660s,63 he gained rich experience of everyday life in London at the same time,64 and he promoted close relations with English and Dutch diplomats later during his political career.65 On the other hand, he was faced with the âactualâ Enlightenment of the Vienna Court, in introducing the new political, economic and legal system in Transylvania after its liberation from Ottoman rule during the last decade of the seventeenth century.66 Drawing on this opposition, one may somewhat metaphorically say that Bethlenâs Preface mirrored the ideas of the ideal Enlightenment in the prison of the âactualâ Enlightenment. But the natural law theory of Bethlenâs envisaged ideal Enlightenment was in crisis itself. Bethlenâs approach to developing a vision of society based on the self-interested pursuit of honour reflects the transformative process of social philosophy from continental natural law theory into the common-sense explanation of human society in eighteenth-century British thinking.67
In composing the Preface to his Autobiography in 1708, Bethlen shared many of his contemporariesâ mistrust of the contractual framework of the community based on an abstract natural law. However, his political publications during the preceding decades demonstrate that, at some point, he had been convinced of the natural moral necessity obliging him to obey the political authority of the Vienna Court.68 Nonetheless, his hopes for an economically prosperous Transylvania with political stability within the body politic of the Habsburg Empire dissipated in 1704 at the latest. His trust in natural law theory explaining political legitimacy and moral obligation in public affairs faded away with the abandonment of the recognition of Habsburg claims of political superiority. From a theoretical point of view, Bethlen no longer accepted the step from unsocial individuals towards constituting community and did not allow for the social contract, either in its totally artificial Hobbesian version or in its voluntarist Pufendorfian version. According to Knud Haakonssenâs detailed analysis, the crisis of natural law proved to be a prolific one as regards the development of the Scottish Enlightenment. The representative thinkers of that movement sought a moral basis for the community in the immediate qualities of individuals deserving to be objects of other-respecting passions of other fellows in a society. Bethlenâs Preface to his Autobiography, being itself an Eastern European momentary snapshot of these phenomena in Western Europe, occupies an intervening position between the poles of this development. He already rejects the contractual ramifications of society based on the explanatory power of natural law theory, but, at the same time, he does not yet substitute them for the other-respecting sentiments of social agents. For Bethlen, a contract among individuals consciously abandoning rights and attributing this to a sovereign is impossible. Enabling a political authority with power is an unconscious act of the social passion of honour. On the other hand, honour never forsakes its perspective of realising self-interest. There is no sign of either a disinterested affection in the fashion of Hutcheson69 or of a Humean moral sentiment70 or of the Smithian passion of sympathy.71 For Bethlen, human desire for honour will never respect the interest of others. In order to avoid Mandevilleâs anarchistic conception of âprivate vices, publick benefits,â72 Bethlen makes an effort to sanctify the private vice of pursuing self-interest through the passionate seeking of honour within a conception of natural religion. However, where the shame of those in power might seem to be a self-limiting moment in respect of the interests of others in a society on the surface, the real reason for his behaviour proves to be his selfishness on a higher level. The shame of the powerful equals his ambition to be recognised by God.
Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (âNKFIH 137963 History of Hungarian Philosophy in Early Modernity (1570â1710)â). I am indebted to GaÌbor GaÌngoÌ for his comments and to Thomas Williams for the proofreading.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Bayle, Pierre, PenseÌes diverses sur la comeÌte: eÌcrites aÌ un docteur de Sorbonne, aÌ lâoccasion de la comeÌte qui parut au mois de deÌcembre 1680, Amsterdam: Reinier Leers, 1683.
Bethlen, MikloÌs, âEÌlete leıÌraÌsa magaÌtoÌl,â in EÌva V. Windisch, ed., KemeÌny JaÌnos eÌs Bethlen MikloÌs művei, 399â981, Budapest: SzeÌpirodalmi, 1980.
Bethlen, MikloÌs, The Autobiography of MikloÌs Bethlen, transl. Bernard Adams, London: Paul Kegan, 2004.
Clerselier, Claude, âPreface,â in ReneÌ Descartes, LâHomme de ReneÌ Descartes et vn traitteÌ de la formation du foetus dv mesme avthevr. Auec des Remarques de Louys de La Forge, eâooiii, Paris: Charles Angot, 1664.
Descartes, ReneÌ, âDiscours de la meÌthode,â in Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, vol. VI, 1â78, Paris: Cerf, 1902.
Herbert of Cherbury, De religione gentilium, errorumque apud eos causis, Amstelodami: Blaeu, 1663.
Hobbes, Thomas, De Corpore. Elementorum Philosophiæ Sectio Prima, London: Crook, 1655.
Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan Or The Matter, Forme, & Power Of A Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall And Civill, London: Crook, 1651.
Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals, London: Millar, 1751.
Hutcheson, Francis, Inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue, London: Darby, 1725.
Mandeville, Bernard, The fable of the bees: or, private vices, publick benefits, London: Roberts, 1714.
Pufendorf, Samuel, De jure naturae et gentium libri octo, Lund: Junghans, 1672.
Pufendorf, Samuel, Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis, ed. Thomas Behme, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999.
Pufendorf, Samuel, Elementorum Jurisprudentiae Universalis LibriII, Den Haag: Adrian Vlacq, 1660.
Pufendorf, Samuel, Of the Law of Nature and Nations. Transl. Basil Kennett. The Fourth Edition, London: [Aris], 1729.
Vossius, Gerardus Johannes, De theologia gentili et physiologia christiana sive de origine ac progressu idololatriae [â¦] LibriIX, Amsterdam: Blaeu, 1668.
Secondary Sources
Asselt, Willem J. van, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603â1669), Leiden: Brill, 2001.
Behme, Thomas, âEinleitung,â in Samuel Pufendorf, Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis, ed. Thomas Behme, ixâxxiv, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999.
Bene, SaÌndor, Theatrum politicum: NyilvaÌnossaÌg, közveÌlemeÌny eÌs irodalom a korai uÌjkorban, Debrecen: Kossuth Egyetemi KiadoÌ, 1999.
Benrath, Adolf, âThe Heidelberger Vorlesungsverzeichnisse aus den Jahren 1655, 1658 bis 1662 und 1685,â in Heidelberger Jahrbücher 5, 85â103, Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg: Springer, 1961.
Böhling, Frank, âEinleitung,â in Samuel Pufendorf, De jure naturae et gentium. Dritter Teil: Materialien und Kommentar, 3â57, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2014.
Dreitzel, Horst, âDie Monarchomachen,â in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts, ed. Helmut Holzhey and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, vol. 4/1, 613â625, Basel: Schwabe & Co AG, 2001.
Dreitzel, Horst, âJohannes Althusius,â in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts, ed. Helmut Holzhey and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, vol. 4/1, 625â638, Basel: Schwabe & Co AG, 2001.
Dreitzel, Horst, âSamuel Pufendorf,â in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts, ed. Helmut Holzhey and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, vol. 4/2, 751â812, Basel: Schwabe & Co AG, 2001.
Förköli, GaÌbor, âMikloÌs ZrıÌnyi: un traiteÌ tacitiste hongrois et la reÌception tardive de lâeÌtatisme,â in Tacite et le tacitisme en Europe aÌ lâeÌpoque moderne, ed. Alexandra Merle and Alicia Oïffer-Bomsel, 501â516, Paris: HonoreÌ Champion, 2017.
GaÌngoÌ, GaÌbor, âG.W. Leibnizâs Candidature for the Chancellorship of Transylvania,â Studia Leibnitiana 47 (2015/1): 44â66.
Gierke, Otto Friedrich von, Johannes Althusius und die Entwicklung der naturrechtlichen Staatstheorien, Breslau: Koebner, 1880.
Gömöri, George, âMikloÌs Bethlen,â in Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms, ed. Margaretta Jolly, 102â103, London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001.
Haakonssen, Knud, Natural law and moral philosophy. From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Haara, Heikki, Pufendorfâs Theory of Sociability: Passions, Habits and Social Order, Cham: Springer, 2018.
HanaÌk, Tibor, Geschichte der Philosophie in Ungarn, München: Trofenik, 1990.
Hochstrasser, Timothy J., Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Hungerland, Isabel C. and George R. Vick, âHobbes Theory of Signification,â Journal of the History of Philosophy 11 (1973/4): 459â482.
Jankovics, JoÌzsef, ed., Bethlen MikloÌs levelei, vol. 1â2, Budapest: AkadeÌmiai, 1987.
Keserű, BaÌlint, âShaping Protestant Networks in Habsburg Transylvania: The Beginnings (1686â1699),â in A Divided Hungary in Europe: Exchanges, Networks and Representations, 1541â1699, vol. 2 â Diplomacy, Information Flow and Cultural Exchange, ed. Szymon BrzezinÌski and AÌron ZarnoÌczki, 183â202, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2014.
Klaniczay, Tibor, âKorszerű politikai gondolkodaÌs eÌs nemzetközi laÌtoÌkör ZrıÌnyi műveiben,â in Irodalom eÌs ideoloÌgia a 16â17. szaÌzadban, ed. BeÌla Varjas, 337â400, Budapest: AkadeÌmiai, 1987.
Klaniczay, Tibor, âNiccolo ZrıÌnyi, Venezia e la letteratura della ragione di Stato,â in MeÌlanges de litteÌrature compareÌe et de philologie offerts aÌ MieczysÅaw Brahmer, 265â273, Warszawa: PWN-EÌditions scientifiques de Pologne, 1967.
Lifschitz, Avi, âThe Arbitrariness of the Linguistic Sign: Variations on an Enlightenment Theme,â Journal of the History of Ideas, 73 (2012/4): 537â557.
Meusburger, Peter and Ferenc ProÌbaÌld, âScientific and Cultural Relations between Heidelberg University and Hungary over Five centuries,â in Geographies of the University, ed. Peter Meusburger, Michael Heffernan, and Laura Suarsana, 43â134, Cham: Springer, 2018.
Mulsow, Martin, âAntiquarianism an Idololatry: The Historia of Religions in Seventeenth Century,â in Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe, ed. G. Pomata and N.G. Siraisi, 181â210, Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press.
Mulsow, Martin, Moderne aus dem Untergrund, Hamburg: Meiner, 2002.
Palladini, Fiammetta, âPufendorf disciple of Hobbes: The nature of man and the state of nature: The doctrine of socialitas,â History of European Ideas, 34 (2008/1): 26â60.
Petrasovszki, Anna, âThe Significance of Natural law as a Part of Legal Education in the Codification Process of 19th Century in Hungary,â in Codification Achievements and Failures in the 19thâ20th Century: 7th Conference on Legal History in Szeged, ed. MaÌria Homoki-Nagy and Norbert Varga, 125â130, Szeged: University of Szeged, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, 2018.
Pettit, Philip, Made with Words. Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Saastamoinen, Kari, The Morality of the Fallen Man, Helsinki: SHS, 1995.
Schmaltz, Tad, Early Modern Cartesianisms: Dutch and French Constructions, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Simon, JoÌzsef, âBethlen MikloÌs eÌs az imaÌdkozoÌ automata,â Magyar FilozoÌfiai Szemle 61 (2017/4): 147â167.
Simon, JoÌzsef, âFiloloÌgiai eÌs filozoÌfiatörteÌneti megjegyzeÌsek Bethlen MikloÌs ÃneÌletıÌraÌsaÌnak ElöljaÌroÌ beszeÌdeÌhez,â IrodalomtörteÌneti közlemeÌnyek 120 (2016/3): 299â314.
Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, London and Edinburgh: Millar-Kincaid and Bell, 1761.
Szűcs, ZoltaÌn GaÌbor, âTermeÌszet, jog, teoloÌgia: egy fejezet a politikai diskurzus törteÌneteÌbÅl a 18. szaÌzadi MagyarorszaÌgon,â Aetas 26 (2011/2): 99â115.
Tezla, Albert, âBethlen MikloÌs,â in Albert Tezla, Hungarian Authors. A Bibliographical Handbook, 97â99, Cambridge MA: Belknapp Press of Harvard University Press, 1970.
Tolnai, GaÌbor, âMikloÌs Bethlen un classique des anciens meÌmoires hongrois,â Acta Litteraria Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 12 (1970/3â4): 251â272.
ToÌth, Zsombor, ed., Bethlen MikloÌs â VaÌlogatott bibliograÌfia, Budapest: reciti, 2016.
ToÌth, Zsombor, âA Man for All Seasons: Exile, Suffering and Martyrdom in the Autobiography of MikloÌs Bethlen,â Hungarian Studies, 26 (2012/2): 273â284.
TrencseÌnyi,BalaÌzs and MaÌrton ZaÌszkalicky, ed., Whose Love of Which Country? Composite States, National Histories and Patriotic Discourses in Early Modern East Central Europe, Leiden: Brill, 2010.
VaÌrkonyi, AÌgnes R., âThe last decades of the independent principality (1660â1711),â in LaÌszloÌ Makkai and ZoltaÌn SzaÌsz, eds.: History of Transylvania, vol. II. From 1606 to 1830, 325â397, New York: Columbia Press, 2002.
ZaÌszkaliczky, MaÌrton, âA Bocskai-felkeleÌs politikai nyelvei: VaÌzlat,â in: MaÌrton ZaÌszkaliczky and GaÌbor KaÌrmaÌn, eds., Politikai nyelvek a 17. szaÌzad elsÅ feleÌnek MagyarorszaÌgaÌn, 11â84, Budapest: reciti, 2019.
SaÌndor Bene, Theatrum politicum: NyilvaÌnossaÌg, közveÌlemeÌny eÌs irodalom a korai uÌjkorban [Theatrum Politicum: Public sphere, public opinion and Literature in Early Modern times] (Debrecen: Kossuth Egyetemi KiadoÌ, 1999); Tibor Klaniczay, âNiccolo ZrıÌnyi, Venezia e la letteratura della ragione di Stato,â in MeÌlanges de litteÌrature compareÌe et de philologie offerts aÌ Mieczyslaw Brahmer (Warszawa: PWN-EÌditions scientifiques de Pologne, 1967), 265â273; Tibor Klaniczay, âKorszerű politikai gondolkodaÌs eÌs nemzetközi laÌtoÌkör ZrıÌnyi műveiben [Modern political thinking and an international perspective in MikloÌs Zrinyiâs works],â in Irodalom eÌs ideoloÌgia a 16â17. szaÌzadban [Literature and ideology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries], ed. BeÌla Varjas (Budapest: AkadeÌmiai, 1987), 337â400; GaÌbor Förköli, âMikloÌs ZrıÌnyi: un traiteÌ tacitiste hongrois et la reÌception tardive de lâeÌtatisme,â in Tacite et le tacitisme en Europe aÌ lâeÌpoque moderne, ed. Alexandra Merle and Alicia Oïffer-Bomsel (Paris: HonoreÌ Champion, 2017), 501â516.
Zsombor ToÌth, âCalvinian Anthropology and the Early Modern Hungarian Devotion: The Case of IstvaÌn Nagy SzÅnyi, the First Hungarian Martyrologist,â in Anthropological Reformations â Anthropology in the Era of Reformation, ed. Hannah Wälzholz (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 415â428.
BalaÌzs TrencseÌnyi and MaÌrton ZaÌszkalicky, ed., Whose Love of Which Country? Composite States, National Histories and Patriotic Discourses in Early Modern East Central Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
As happens most recently in MaÌrton ZaÌszkaliczky, âA Bocskai-felkeleÌs politikai nyelvei: VaÌzlat [Political languages of the Bocskai uprising: An outline],â in Politikai nyelvek a 17. szaÌzad elsÅ feleÌnek MagyarorszaÌgaÌn [Political languages in Hungary in the first half of the seventeenth century], ed. MaÌrton ZaÌszkaliczky and GaÌbor KaÌrmaÌn (Budapest: reciti, 2019), 11â84.
See Martin P. Schennachâs contribution to this volume. There are only a few examples of Hungarian research in this area: Anna Petrasovszki, âThe Significance of Natural Law as a Part of Legal Education in the Codification Process of 19th Century in Hungary,â in Codification Achievements and Failures in the 19thâ20th Century: 7th Conference on Legal History in Szeged, ed. MaÌria Homoki-Nagy and Norbert Varga (Szeged: University of Szeged, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, 2018), 125â130; ZoltaÌn GaÌbor Szűcs, âTermeÌszet, jog, teoloÌgia: egy fejezet a politikai diskurzus törteÌneteÌbÅl a 18. szaÌzadi MagyarorszaÌgon [Nature, law and theology: A chapter in the history of political discourse in eighteenth-Century Hungary],â Aetas 26 (2011/2): 99â115.
The Hungarian contributions to this volume are clearly devoted to making up for this shortage of reflections on the history of ideas in Hungarian Early Modernity.
There is an extended corpus of research on Bethlenâs literary and diplomatic activities in the Hungarian language. Zsombor ToÌthâs bibliography is a helpful introduction to these studies: Zsombor ToÌth, ed., Bethlen MikloÌs â VaÌlogatott bibliograÌfia [MikloÌs Bethlen â A selected bibliography] (Budapest: reciti, 2016). For a general presentation of Bethlenâs intellectual profile in English, I recommend George Gömöri, âMikloÌs Bethlen,â in Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms, ed. Margaretta Jolly (London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001), 102â103; and Albert Tezla, âBethlen MikloÌs,â in Albert Tezla, Hungarian Authors. A Bibliographical Handbook (Cambridge, MA: Belknapp Press of Harvard University Press, 1970), 97â99.
All references to the Hungarian version follow the standard edition edited by EÌva V. Windisch: MikloÌs Bethlen, âEÌlete leıÌraÌsa magaÌtoÌl,â in EÌva V. Windisch, ed., KemeÌny JaÌnos eÌs Bethlen MikloÌs művei (Budapest: SzeÌpirodalmi, 1980), 399â981. Although the text was not edited until 1858, it was read and copied in a wide circle of intellectuals. More than twenty copies have been handed down to us from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I will not discuss philological problems of manuscripts and editions: I will quote Bethlenâs text according to my own studies to reconstruct an ultima manus version of his Preface which in some cases proves to be different from the formulations of the standard edition (cf. JoÌzsef Simon, âFiloloÌgiai eÌs filozoÌfiatörteÌneti megjegyzeÌsek Bethlen MikloÌs ÃneÌletıÌraÌsaÌnak ElöljaÌroÌ beszeÌdeÌhez [Philosophical and philological considerations of the Preface to MikloÌs Bethlenâs Autobiography],â in IrodalomtörteÌneti közlemeÌnyek 120 (2016/3): 299â314). For the English version, I follow Bernard Adamsâs translation (The Autobiography of MikloÌs Bethlen, transl. Bernard Adams (London: Paul Kegan, 2004)), but I have made essential emendations on some passages relevant to our topic. For a general exposition of Bethlenâs Autobiography in the history of older Hungarian literature, see GaÌbor Tolnai, âMikloÌs Bethlen un classique des anciens meÌmoires hongrois,â in Acta Litteraria Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 12 (1970/3â4): 251â272.
Tibor HanaÌk, Geschichte der Philosophie in Ungarn (München: Trofenik, 1990), 29â31.
See Benrathâs publication of the advertisements of lectures at the University of Heidelberg in 1661: Adolf Benrath, âThe Heidelberger Vorlesungsverzeichnisse aus den Jahren 1655, 1658 bis 1662 und 1685,â in Heidelberger Jahrbücher 5 (Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg: Springer, 1961), 95; and Frank Böhling, âEinleitung,â in Samuel Pufendorf, De jure naturae et gentium. Dritter Teil: Materialien und Kommentar (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2014), 12.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 185; Bethlen, EÌlete, 573: âI went to the lectures by Samuel Pufendorf, then a young man but later a great and famous, learned juris doctor, who lectured on Hugo Grotiusâs de jure belli et pacis.â On Bethlenâs visit to Heidelberg, cf. Peter Meusburger and Ferenc ProÌbaÌld, âScientific and Cultural Relations between Heidelberg University and Hungary over Five Centuries,â in Geographies of the University, ed. Peter Meusburger, Michael Heffernan, and Laura Suarsana (Cham: Springer, 2018), 43â134, esp. 67â69.
Horst Dreitzel, âSamuel Pufendorf,â in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. Helmut Holzhey and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, vol. 4/2 (Basel: Schwabe & Co AG, 2001), 779.
Tad Schmaltz, Early Modern Cartesianisms: Dutch and French Constructions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Willem J. van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603â1669) (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
Cf. AÌgnes R. VaÌrkonyi, âThe last decades of the independent principality (1660â1711),â in History of Transylvania, ed. LaÌszloÌ Makkai and ZoltaÌn SzaÌsz, vol. II: From 1606 to 1830 (New York: Columbia Press, 2002), 325â397.
VaÌrkonyi, âThe last decades,â 372â378.
In recognition of his diplomatic efforts, Bethlen was elected a member of the Gubernium as chancellor of Transylvania. His office remained vacant after his arrest, which fact led to an interesting chapter in Leibnizâs biography, as he had made great efforts to secure his own appointment to Bethlenâs former office as chancellor of Transylvania during his stay in Vienna from 1712 to 1714. For more details, see GaÌbor GaÌngoÌ, âG.W. Leibnizâs Candidature for the Chancellorship of Transylvania,â in Studia Leibnitiana 47 (2015/1): 44â66.
For details, see Zsombor ToÌth, âA Man for All Seasons: Exile, Suffering and Martyrdom in the Autobiography of MikloÌs Bethlen,â Hungarian Studies, 26 (2012/2): 273â284, esp. 275.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 52; Bethlen, EÌlete, 434: âNem tapasztalja-eÌ a legegyügyűbb ember is meg ezt magaÌban; ha az elmeÌje valamire figyelmez, azonkıÌvül, amire az figyelmez akkor, akaÌrmit halljon, laÌsson, semmit benne nem tud. SÅt sokszor amire a nyelve szokott, imaÌdsaÌgot vagy mit a nyelve is elmond, de az elmeÌje maÌsutt jaÌrvaÌn, azt sem tudja, mondotta-eÌ vagy nem. NeÌha maÌsnak is szoÌl, felel, de nem tudja, ha osztaÌn raÌ keÌrdik, meÌg csak uÌgy is, mint sokszori aÌlma eszeÌbe nem jut. Ezt legjobban megtapasztalhatja kiki magaÌn, kivaÌltkeÌppen a templomban, az isteni szolgaÌlatban, mikor az imaÌdsaÌgot a pap utaÌn mondja, vagy a preÌdikaÌcioÌt hallgatja; ha a lelke maÌsutt jaÌr, sem a nyelve szoÌlaÌsiban, sem a füle hallaÌsiban semmit sem tud, de tudja azt joÌl, amire akkor az elmeÌje figyelmezett.â
See the locus classicus in ReneÌ Descartes, âDiscours de la meÌthode,â in Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, vol. VI (Paris: Cerf, 1902), 56â57.
The automatically praying man served as a paradigmatic example in mechanistic descriptions of human behaviour; Claude Clerselierâs Preface to the French edition of Descartesâs De lâhomme may have been the most influential passage to use this striking image; cf. Claude Clerselier, âPreface,â in ReneÌ Descartes, LâHomme de ReneÌ Descartes et vn traitteÌ de la formation du foetus dv mesme avthevr. Auec des Remarques de Louys de La Forge (Paris: Charles Angot, 1664), ooiiâooiii. For a detailed interpretation, cf. JoÌzsef Simon, âBethlen MikloÌs eÌs az imaÌdkozoÌ automata [MikloÌs Bethlen and the praying automaton],â Magyar FilozoÌfiai Szemle 61 (2017/4): 147â167.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 53 (Bethlen, EÌlete, 435): âfor the soul has two sorts of task in man, one which is purely that of the soul, spiritual, intellectual, and the other which is animal, physical, which consists of making oneâs senses and members, such as the mouth, tongue, ears etc., fit to perform human tasks; this the soul which attends to other thoughts does without abandoning them, and the limbs too can function without the conscientia or knowledge of the soul, for if it were with the awareness and the knowledge of the soul, one would not forget it so quickly.â
Bethlen, Autobiography, 53 (Bethlen, EÌlete, 434â435): âRather it may be believed that its accomplishment is like the string of a cimbalom or virginals being struck at the end; the shock runs along it and it vibrates; or in the organ, when the wind enters a pipe and it sounds. So the sound of the word from the preacherâs mouth enters your ear and by certain nerves affects your tongue and you make an utterance, especially if those physical members which, in dumb animals that have no comprehending souls, perform such functions as hearing, sight, speech etc.â
Subdivisions and emphases are my own â JS.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 24â25 (emendations and emphases added â JS); Bethlen, EÌlete, 410: âA neÌv az emberektÅl a dolgok vagy emberek egymaÌstoÌl valoÌ megkülönbözteteÌseÌre eÌs annak jobban valoÌ megismereÌseÌre eÌs maÌssal is megismerteteÌseÌre talaÌltatott, szereztetett jegy, p. o. Isten, angyal, ember, eÌg, föld, tenger, loÌ, ökör; orszaÌgoknak, vaÌrosoknak, embereknek külön-külön a neve, vezeteÌkneve; vaÌrosroÌl, faluroÌl vagy akaÌrmi egyeÌb jelrÅl maÌsoktoÌl megkülönböztetÅ leıÌraÌsa, nevezeÌse; mind csak olyan jegy, amely teÌged s engem segıÌt arra, hogy azokroÌl az eÌn elmeÌm s a tieÌd jobban gondolkozhassunk eÌs arroÌl valoÌ gondolatunkat a szükseÌghez keÌpest egymaÌssal közölhessük.â
Philip Pettit treats the transformative potential of the Hobbesian theory of language as an essential feature of Hobbesâs social philosophy; see Philip Pettit, Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008); the important role language plays in Hobbesâs contract theory has been reissued since Hungerland and Vickâs article: Isabel C. Hungerland and George R. Vick, âHobbesâs Theory of Signification,â Journal of the History of Philosophy 11 (1973/4): 459â482. In my rendering of the Hungarian terms âjelâ/ âjegyâ in English, I endeavoured to follow Hobbesâs famous and controversial distinction between mark and sign; cf. Thomas Hobbes, De Corpore. Elementorum Philosophiæ Sectio Prima (London: Crook, 1655) I, 2, 1â2, 8â10; cf. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Or The Matter, Forme, & Power Of A Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall And Civill (London: Crook, 1651), chaps. 4, 12â17, esp. 12â13.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 25; cf. Bethlen, EÌlete, 410â411: âEz a neÌv is csak szoÌ, mint a hıÌr, eÌs abban, akirÅl maÌr eÌn s te beszeÌlünk, sem az a neÌv, sem az a hıÌr, amelyet mü neÌki adunk, vagy roÌla gondolunk, szoÌlunk, vagy ıÌrunk, semmi qualitast, valoÌsaÌgot, vagy vaÌltozaÌst nem okoz, nem szerez; eÌs Å aneÌlkül az Å IstentÅl adott aÌllapotjaÌban minden fogyatkozaÌs neÌlkül megmarad s megaÌll, valamıÌg tudniillik a hıÌr eÌs neÌv, melyet ÅfelÅle maÌs elkövet, csak a hıÌrnek eÌs a neÌvnek Åszinte, valoÌ együgyűseÌgeÌnek hataÌraÌban marad. De mikor osztaÌn azon tuÌl meÌgyen a nyelv, amint Jakab apostol szeÌpen leıÌrja capite 3. bezzeg maÌr akkor kezd szenvedni, megillettetni az, akirÅl a szoÌ vagyon, amint a szoÌloÌk ÅroÌla joÌl avagy rosszul szoÌlanak, eÌs Å azaÌltal az Å IstentÅl adatott aÌllapotjaÌban vagy segıÌttetik, vagy akadaÌlyoztatik. EÌs ıÌgy inneÌt jöttek maÌr a vilaÌgba beÌ ezek a szoÌk eÌs az embereknek moraÌlis vagy civilis qualitasi: joÌ vagy rossz hıÌrneÌv, gyalaÌzat, raÌgalmazaÌs, szidaÌs, vaÌdlaÌs vagy dıÌcseÌret, becsület, meÌltoÌsaÌg, eÌs eÌltekben is, holtok utaÌn is joÌ vagy rossz emleÌkezet. Melyek mikor osztaÌn olyan valoÌsaÌggaÌ eÌs az embert megilletÅ cselekedetteÌ vaÌlnak, hogy az embernek azaÌltal eÌlete, joÌszaÌga, szabadsaÌga, beÌkesseÌge s egeÌszseÌge, vagy akaÌrmijeÌben, akaÌr maga a szoÌloÌ aÌltal, akaÌr akiknek szoÌl, azok aÌltal, vagy elÅmenetele vagy akadaÌlya, romlaÌsa leÌgyen: maÌr az a joÌ vagy rossz hıÌrneÌv, amelyet embernek kıÌvaÌnni vagy taÌvoztatni kell.â
Samuel Pufendorf, Elementorum Jurisprudentiae Universalis Libri II (Den Haag: Adrian Vlacq, 1660). I refer to Elementa according to the new edition in the series of Pufendorfâs Gesammelte Werke: Samuel Pufendorf, Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis, ed. Thomas Behme (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999).
Cf. Pufendorf: Elementa, 37 (Def. VIII, 1): â[â¦] vocabulum juris [â¦] sumatur pro qualitate illa morali, qua recte vel personis imperamus, vel res tenemus, aut qua eaedem nobis debenturâ; or ibid., 44 (Def. XII, title): âObligatio est qualitas moralis operativa, qua quis praestare aut admittere vel pati tenetur aliquidâ (my emphases â JS).
Samuel Pufendorf, De jure naturae et gentium libri octo (Lund: Junghans, 1672), 15â18 (I, 1, 18â21).
As in Pufendorf, De jure, 18 (JNG, I, 1, 21): âDantur enim qualitates morales patibiles, quae certo modo judicium hominum afficere intelliguntur; sicut inter qualitates physicas eo nomine vocantur, quibus facultas sensitiva afficitur; ut est honor, ignominia, auctoritas, gravitas, claritas, obscuritas, & similia.â For a seminal interpretation emphasising the role of moral passions in Pufendorfâs theory, see Haaraâs recent publication: Heikki Haara, Pufendorfâs Theory of Sociability: Passions, Habits and Social Order (Cham: Springer, 2018).
Pufendorf, De jure, 30 (JNG I, 2, 8): âAdhibentur igitur potissimum demonstrationes in moralibus circa qualitates morales hactenus, ut eas actionibus & personis certo competere [â¦] constet; puta, an haec actio sit justa vel injusta, an in hanc personam, in genere consideratam, cadat hoc jus, aut haec obligatio.â
However, consciousness plays an important role in guiding egoistic and social passions; cf. Haara, Pufendorfâs theory, 74â80.
This consciousness is a feature of voluntaristic imposition of moral entities and does not imply, of course, any rational access to a set of natural values as by Grotius. For this difference between Grotius and Pufendorf, see Knud Haakonssen, Natural law and moral philosophy. From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 41.
Pufendorf: Of the Law of Nature and Nations, transl. Basil Kennett. The Fourth Edition (London: [Aris], 1729), 316. Cf. Pufendorf, De jure, 394 (JNG, 4, 1, 8): âEx hisce igitur fundamentis liquido judicari potest, quid sit veritas, ad quam dicendam homines obligantur; quid item mendacium, tantopere omnibus honestis detestatum.â
I follow Hochstrasserâs interpretation here: Timothy J. Hochstrasser, Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 82â95.
Nor did Jean Barbeyrac, Pufendorfâs French editor, accept the Pufendorfian truth value of utterances â for him, these natural rules of using signs would imply the extreme consequence that each violation of them should be qualified as committing a crime. Cf. Avi Lifschitz, âThe Arbitrariness of the Linguistic Sign: Variations on an Enlightenment Theme,â Journal of the History of Ideas, 73 (2012/4): 537â557, esp. 541â543.
See the passage under my subsection IV.2. For a textual basis of this terminological change, cf. Hobbes: Leviathan, 41 (chap. 10): âNaturall Power, is the eminence of the Faculties of Body, or Mind: [â¦] Instrumentall are those Powers, which acquired by these, or by fortune, are means and Instruments to acquire more: as Riches, Reputation, Friends, and the Secret working of God [â¦]. For the nature of Power, is in this point, like to Fame, increasing as it proceeds; or like the motion of heavy bodies, which the further they go, make still the more hast.â
Cf. Thomas Behme, âEinleitung,â in Samuel Pufendorf, Elementa jurisprudentiae universalis, ed. Thomas Behme (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999), xvii. For a detailed analysis of the Hobbesian roots of Pufendorfâs social theory, cf. Fiammetta Palladini, âPufendorf disciple of Hobbes: The nature of man and the state of nature: The doctrine of socialitas,â History of European Ideas, 34 (2008/1): 26â60.
Hobbes: Leviathan, 41 (ch. 10).
Hobbes: Leviathan, 41 (ch. 10).
Bethlen, Autobiography, 27; Bethlen, EÌlete, 411: âEÌs ebbÅl jÅ maÌr ki a vilaÌgnak az a szeÌp HeleÌnaÌja vagy baÌlvaÌnya, amelyet becsület neve alatt imaÌd a vilaÌg.â
Bethlen, Autobiography, 27; Bethlen, EÌlete, 411. â Bernard Adamsâs translation of the term uralaÌs using the English word domination is misleading, insofar as the Hungarian phrase refers to the recognition of domination from the perspective of a person subjected to someone elseâs power.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 28; Bethlen, EÌlete, 413: âEzekbÅl szaÌrmazik vagy ugyan termeÌszet szereÌnt születik az emberben kettÅ: az ambitio vagy generositas, gloriae cupido, mely annak az Å felÅle valoÌ joÌ Ä±ÌtıÌletnek kıÌvaÌnaÌsa; eÌs a szeÌgyen, szemeÌrem, pudor, mely attoÌl a bal ıÌtıÌlettÅl valoÌ feÌlelem, irtoÌzaÌs.â
Bethlen, Autobiography, 31â32; Bethlen, EÌlete, 414â416.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 31; Bethlen, EÌlete, 414 (emphases added â JS).
Horst Dreitzel, âDie Monarchomachen,â in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts, ed. Helmut Holzhey and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, vol. 4/1 (Basel: Schwabe & Co AG, 2001), 613â625.
Horst Dreitzel, âJohannes Althusius,â in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie des 17 Jahrhunderts, ed. Helmut Holzhey and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, vol. 4/1 (Basel: Schwabe & Co AG, 2001), 625â638.
For the classic exposition of Althusiusâs theory of majestas, see Otto Friedrich von Gierke, Johannes Althusius und die Entwicklung der naturrechtlichen Staatstheorien (Breslau: Koebner, 1880), 18â36.
Gerardus Joannes Vossius, De theologia gentili et physiologia christiana sive de origine ac progressu idololatriae [â¦] Libri IX (Amsterdam: Blaeu, 1668).
Herbert of Cherbury, De religione gentilium, errorumque apud eos causis (Amstelodami: Blaeu, 1663). For Vossiusâs and Cherburyâs comparative investigations of religion, see Martin Mulsow, âAntiquarianism and Idolatry: The Historia of Religions in the Seventeenth Century,â in Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe, ed. G. Pomata and N.G. Siraisi (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2005), 181â210.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 45; Bethlen, EÌlete, 427: âKeÌszebb követ, faÌt, kıÌgyoÌt, beÌkaÌt imaÌdni, mintsem magaÌt Isten neÌlkül hagyni.â
This change of perspective is in accordance with Martin Mulsowâs thesis on the idea of an early modern political theology based on comparative studies of religion; cf. Martin Mulsow, Moderne aus dem Untergrund (Hamburg: Meiner, 2002), 173â181.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 45, Bethlen, EÌlete, 427: âNincs nemzetseÌg a vilaÌgon, akiben imaÌdsaÌg, esküveÌs, aÌldaÌs, aÌtok, szitok, eÌs valami kis szemeÌrem, dıÌcsıÌret, gyalaÌzat, bünteteÌs, jutalom ne leÌgyen.â
Bethlen, Autobiography, 45; Bethlen, EÌlete, 427: âMaÌr tegyük fel baÌr, hogy a dıÌcsıÌret, gyalaÌzat, jutalom, bünteteÌs egeÌszen csak emberi talaÌlmaÌny a közönseÌges beÌkesseÌg megtartaÌsaÌra.â
Bethlen, Autobiography, 45; Bethlen, EÌlete, 427: âa szitok mintegy a megharagutt, felgyuÌladott kormos keÌmeÌnynek, a szıÌvnek kigyuÌlaÌsa.â
Bethlen, Autobiography, 45; Bethlen, EÌlete, 427â428: âDe az imaÌdsaÌg, esküveÌs, aÌldaÌs, aÌtok volna-eÌ, ha az ember az Istent nem hinneÌ, akinek vagyon arra ereje s akaratja, hogy ha imaÌdkozol, meghallgassa eÌs segıÌtsen; ha hamisan esküszik valaki, megbüntesse; az aÌldaÌst eÌs az aÌtkot teljesıÌtse? Mert hiszen azt minden tudja, hogy az mind csak szoÌ, nyelvnek eÌs aërnek mozgaÌsa, eÌs ha nincs, aki erÅt adjon neÌki, mind csak hijaÌbanvaloÌsaÌg, elviszi a szeÌl. Ezt az esküvÅ, eÌs akinek esküsznek, az aÌldoÌ vagy aÌtkozoÌ, eÌs az, akire az igazgattatik, becsülneÌ-eÌ? eÌlne-eÌ veÌle? feÌlne-eÌ tÅle? ha uÌgy nem hinneÌ. Megpirulna-eÌ, szeÌgyenlene-eÌ az ember ott is, ahol senki sem laÌtja, a hatalmas, aki a bünteteÌstÅl nem feÌl, ha a leÌlekismereti nem ijeszteneÌ.â
Pufendorf, De jure, 28â30 (JNG, I, ii, 7). For a detailed analysis, cf. Kari Saastamoinen, The Morality of the Fallen Man (Helsinki: SHS, 1995), 150â152. Saastamoinen described very convincingly the extent to which Pufendorf had relied on Descartesâs treatment of shame and pride in Les Passions de lâaÌme (§ 205â207). Since Bethlen discredited any theory of an independent mind for the explanation of both social and pre-social behaviour, his views must essentially differ from Pufendorfian hermeneutics of Cartesian passions. Bethlenâs maintenance of naturally-felt shame proves to be a rather a deistic trust in a holistic system of the mechanical universe instead of turning back to the all-penetrating harmony of a Thomistic universe.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 45â46; Bethlen, EÌlete, 428: âEÌs immaÌr ebbÅl laÌtszik ki, hogy a MoÌzes ıÌraÌsa nem fabula, a köntös nemcsak hideg, meleg, hanem a szeÌgyen ellen valoÌ talaÌlmaÌnya is AÌdaÌmnak. [â¦] HijaÌba s hamisan vetetteÌk neÌmely bolond atheusok s profaÌnusok azt is eleÌ, hogy MoÌzes eÌs maÌs hasonloÌk magoknak becsületet, maÌsokon valoÌ uralkodaÌst, eÌs az együgyű embereknek hozzaÌjuk valoÌ engedelmesseÌgeket akartaÌk szerzeni, eÌs uÌgy költötteÌk az Istent, a lelket, mennyorszaÌgot, poklot etc.â
Pierre Bayle, PenseÌes diverses sur la comeÌte: eÌcrites aÌ un docteur de Sorbonne, aÌ lâoccasion de la comeÌte qui parut au mois de deÌcembre 1680 (Amsterdam: Reinier Leers, 1683), 529â531 (§ 173).
Bethlen, Autobiography, 17â21, 51; Bethlen, EÌlete, 403â407, 433.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 45â46; Bethlen, EÌlete, 427â428.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 187â191; Bethlen, EÌlete, 573â580.
Bethlen, Autobiography, 196â198; Bethlen, EÌlete, 585â587.
In this study, I cannot outline the complex theme of Bethlenâs diplomatic activities. However, Bethlenâs early orientation in Transylvanian anti-Habsburg foreign policy towards an alliance with France and Poland in the 1660s was replaced by a pro-Habsburg policy with a balance of power supported by the Brandenburg-Dutch-English line of diplomacy at the Vienna court. Within the latter political context, Bethlen had personal ties to English and Dutch politicians, such as to Englandâs ambassador William Paget (1637â1713) and to the Dutch ambassadors Conrad Heemskerck (1646â1702) and Jacob Jan Hamel-Bruyninx in Vienna. The former two were personally informed about Bethlenâs Diploma Leopoldinum project before he submitted it to Emperor Leopoldâs foreign affairs faction; Bethlen, Autobiography, 409â410; Bethlen, EÌlete, 820â821. On Hamel-Bruyninx, referred to as âmy old friend, the Dutch ambassadorâ by Bethlen, see Bethlenâs correspondence between 1704 and 1712, JoÌzsef Jankovics, ed., Bethlen MikloÌs levelei [The correspondence of MikloÌs Bethlen] (Budapest: AkadeÌmiai, 1987), vol. 2 (1699â1716), passim.
For an outline of this process in Habsburg policy in Transylvania from a Protestant point of view, see BaÌlint Keserű, âShaping Protestant Networks in Habsburg Transylvania: The Beginnings (1686â1699),â in A Divided Hungary in Europe: Exchanges, Networks and Representations, 1541â1699, vol. 2 â Diplomacy, Information Flow and Cultural Exchange, ed. Szymon BrzezinÌski and AÌron ZarnoÌczki (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2014), 183â202.
Haakonssen, Natural law, 58â62.
The best example of Bethlenâs recognition of the Vienna Courtâs political authority against the background of natural law theory is his public letter to Franz Ulrich Kinsky, the counselor of the Vienna Geheimrat. For a modern edition of the Latin text, see JoÌzsef Jankovics and LaÌszloÌ SzöreÌnyi, âBethlen MikloÌs ismeretlen ânyıÌlt leveleâ Franz Ulrich Kinskyhez (1691)â [âMikloÌs Bethlenâs unknown âopen letterâ to Ulrich Kinskyâ], IrodalomtörteÌneti KözlemeÌnyek 117 (2013/6): 692â721.
Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue (London: Darby, 1725), 143.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (London: Millar, 1751), 197â213 (Appendix I. Concerning moral sentiment).
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London-Edinburgh: Millar-Kincaid and Bell, 1761), 1â10 (Part I, Sec. 1, ch. 1 Of Sympathy).
Mandeville, Bernard, The fable of the bees: or, private vices, publick benefits (London: Roberts, 1714).