3. The second kind work against our language by vicious excuses. These are they who would rather be considered masters than be such; and, to avoid the reverse (that is, not to be considered masters), they always lay the blame upon the materials prepared for their art, or upon their tools; as the bad The unskilful attribute their faults to the language smith blames the iron given him, and the bad lute-player blames the lute, thinking thus to lay the fault of the bad knife or the bad playing upon the iron or the lute, and to excuse themselves. Such are they (and they are not few) who wish to be considered orators; and in order to excuse themselves for not speaking, or for speaking badly, blame and accuse their material, that is, their own language, and praise that of others in which they are not required to work. And whoever wishes to see wherein this tool [the vulgar tongue] deserves blame, let him look at the work that good workmen have done with it, and he will recognize the viciousness of those who, laying the blame upon it, think they excuse themselves. Against such does Tullius exclaim, in the beginning of one of his books called De Finibus,[611] because in his time they blamed the Latin language and commended the Greek, for the same reasons that these people consider the Italian vile and the Provençal precious.
XII. 3. That thing is nearest to a person which is, of all things of its kind, the most closely related to himself; thus of all men the son is nearest to the father, and of all arts medicine is nearest to the doctor, and music to the musician, because these are more closely related to them than any others; of all countries, People should use their own language, as being most natural to them the one a man lives in is nearest to him, because it is most closely related to him. And thus a man's own language is nearest to him, because most closely related, being that one which comes alone and before all others in his mind, and not only of itself is it thus related, but by accident, inasmuch as it is connected with those nearest to him, such as his kinsmen, and his fellow-citizens, and his own people. And this is his own language, which is not only near, but the very nearest, to every one. Because if proximity be the seed of friendship, as has been stated above, it is plain that it has been one of the causes of the love I bear my own language, which is nearer to me than the others. The above-named reason (that is, that we are most nearly related to that which is first in our mind) gave rise to that custom of the people which makes the firstborn inherit everything, as the nearest of kin; and, because the nearest, therefore the most beloved.
4. And again, its goodness makes me its friend. And here we must know that every good quality properly belonging to a thing is lovable in that thing; as men should have a fine beard, and women should have the whole face quite free from hair; as the foxhound should have a keen scent, and the greyhound great speed. And the more peculiar this good quality, the more lovable it is, whence, although all virtue is lovable in man, that is most so which is most peculiarly human.... And we The Italian fulfils the highest requirement of a language see that, of all things pertaining to language, the power of adequately expressing thought is the most loved and commended; therefore this is its peculiar virtue. And as this belongs to our own language, as has been proved above in another chapter, it is plain that this was one of the causes of my love for it; since, as we have said, goodness is one of the causes that engender love.
80. Dante's Conception of the Imperial Power
The best known prose work of Dante, the De Monarchia, is perhaps the most purely idealistic political treatise ever written. Its quality of idealism is so pronounced, in fact, that there is not even sufficient mention of contemporary men or events to assist in solving the wholly unsettled problem of the date of its composition. The De Monarchia is composed of three books, each of which is devoted to a fundamental question in relation to the balance of temporal and spiritual authority. The first question is whether the temporal monarchy is necessary for the well-being of the world. The answer is, that it is necessary for the preservation of justice, freedom, and unity and effectiveness of human effort. The second question is whether the Roman people took to itself this dignity of monarchy, or empire, by right. By a survey of Roman history from the days of Æneas to those of Cæsar it is made to appear that it was God's will that the Romans should rule the world. The third question is the most vital of all and its answer constitutes the pith of the treatise. In brief it is, does the authority of the Roman monarch, or emperor, who is thus by right the monarch of the world, depend immediately upon God, or upon some vicar of God, the successor of Peter? This question Dante answers first negatively by clearing away the familiar defenses of spiritual supremacy, and afterwards positively, by bringing forward specific arguments for the temporal superiority. The selection given below comprises the most suggestive portions of Dante's treatment of this aspect of his subject. The method, it will be observed, is quite thoroughly scholastic. Whenever the De Monarchia was composed, it remained all but unknown until after the author's death (1321); but with the renewal of conflict between papacy and imperial power the imperialists were not slow to make use of the treatise, and by the middle of the fourteenth century it had become known throughout Europe, being admired by one party as much as it was abhorred by the other. At various times copies of it were burned as heretical and in the sixteenth century it was placed by the Roman authorities upon the Index of Prohibited Books. Few literary productions of the later Middle Ages exercised greater influence upon contemporary thought and politics.
Source—Dante Alighieri, De Monarchia ["Concerning Monarchy">[, Bk. III., Chaps. 1-16 passim. Translated by Aurelia Henry (Boston, 1904), pp. 137-206 passim.
I. 2. The question pending investigation, then, concerns two great luminaries, the Roman Pontiff [Pope] and the Roman Prince [Emperor]; and the point at issue is whether the authority The problem to be considered of the Roman monarch, who, as proved in the second book, is rightful monarch of the world, is derived from God directly, or from some vicar or minister of God, by whom I mean the successor of Peter, indisputable keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
IV. 1. Those men to whom the entire subsequent discussion is directed assert that the authority of the Empire depends on the authority of the Church, just as the inferior artisan depends on the architect. They are drawn to this by divers opposing arguments, some of which they take from Holy Scripture, and some from certain acts performed by the chief pontiff, and by the Emperor himself; and they endeavor to make their conviction reasonable.
2. For, first, they maintain that, according to Genesis, God made two mighty luminaries, a greater and a lesser, the former to hold supremacy by day and the latter by night [Gen., i. 15, 16]. These they interpret allegorically to be the two rulers—spiritual The analogy of the sun and moon and temporal.[612] Whence they argue that as the lesser luminary, the moon, has no light but that gained from the sun, so the temporal ruler has no authority but that gained from the spiritual ruler.
8. I proceed to refute the above assumption that the two luminaries of the world typify its two ruling powers. The whole force of their argument lies in the interpretation; but this we can prove indefensible in two ways. First, since these ruling powers are, as it were, accidents necessitated by man himself, God would seem to have used a distorted order in creating first accidents, and then the subject necessitating them. It is absurd to speak thus of God, but it is evident from the Word that the two lights were created on the fourth day, and man on the sixth.