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A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 05
GREAT – GREATNESS
Of the Meaning of These Words
Great is one of those words which are most frequently used in a moral sense, and with the least consideration and judgment. Great man, great genius, great captain, great philosopher, great poet; we mean by this language "one who has far exceeded ordinary limits." But, as it is difficult to define those limits, the epithet "great" is often applied to those who possess only mediocrity.
This term is less vague and doubtful when applied to material than to moral subjects. We know what is meant by a great storm, a great misfortune, a great disease, great property, great misery.
The term "large" (gros) is sometimes used with respect to subjects of the latter description, that is, material ones, as equivalent to great, but never with respect to moral subjects. We say large property for great wealth, but not a large captain for a great captain, or a large minister for a great minister. Great financier means a man eminently skilful in matters of national finance; but gros financier expresses merely a man who has become wealthy in the department of finance.
The great man is more difficult to be defined than the great artist. In an art or profession, the man who has far distanced his rivals, or who has the reputation of having done so, is called great in his art, and appears, therefore, to have required merit of only one description in order to obtain this eminence; but the great man must combine different species of merit. Gonsalvo, surnamed the Great Captain, who observed that "the web of honor was coarsely woven," was never called a great man. It is more easy to name those to whom this high distinction should be refused than those to whom it should be granted. The denomination appears to imply some great virtues. All agree that Cromwell was the most intrepid general, the most profound statesman, the man best qualified to conduct a party, a parliament, or an army, of his day; yet no writer ever gives him the title of great man; because, although he possessed great qualities, he possessed not a single great virtue.
This title seems to fall to the lot only of the small number of men who have been distinguished at once by virtues, exertions, and success. Success is essential, because the man who is always unfortunate is supposed to be so by his own fault.
Great (grand), by itself, expresses some dignity. In Spain it is a high and most distinguishing appellative (grandee) conferred by the king on those whom he wishes to honor. The grandees are covered in the presence of the king, either before speaking to him or after having spoken to him, or while taking their seats with the rest.
Charles the Fifth conferred the privileges of grandeeship on sixteen principal noblemen. That emperor himself afterwards granted the same honors to many others. His successors, each in his turn, have added to the number. The Spanish grandees have long claimed to be considered of equal rank and dignity with the electors and the princes of Italy. At the court of France they have the same honors as peers.
The title of "great" has been always given, in France, to many of the chief officers of the crown – as great seneschal, great master, great chamberlain, great equerry, great pantler, great huntsman, great falconer. These titles were given them to distinguish their pre-eminence above the persons serving in the same departments under them. The distinction is not given to the constable, nor to the chancellor, nor to the marshals, although the constable is the chief of all the household officers, the chancellor the second person in the state, and the marshal the second officer in the army. The reason obviously is, that they had no deputies, no vice-constables, vice-marshals, vice-chancellors, but officers under another denomination who executed their orders, while the great steward, great chamberlain, and great equerry, etc., had stewards, chamberlains, and equerries under them.
Great (grand) in connection with seigneur, "great lord," has a signification more extensive and uncertain. We give this title of "grand seigneur" (seignor) to the Turkish sultan, who assumes that of pasha, to which the expression grand seignor does not correspond. The expression "un grand," "great man," is used in speaking of a man of distinguished birth, invested with dignities, but it is used only by the common people. A person of birth or consequence never applies the term to any one. As the words "great lord" (grand seigneur) are commonly applied to those who unite birth, dignity, and riches, poverty seems to deprive a man of the right to it, or at least to render it inappropriate or ridiculous. Accordingly, we say a poor gentleman, but not a poor grand seigneur.
Great (grand) is different from mighty (puissant). A man may at the same time be both one and the other, but puissant implies the possession of some office of power and consequence. "Grand" indicates more show and less reality; the "puissant" commands, the "grand" possesses honors.
There is greatness (grandeur) in mind, in sentiments, in manners, and in conduct. The expression is not used in speaking of persons in the middling classes of society, but only of those who, by their rank, are bound to show nobility and elevation. It is perfectly true that a man of the most obscure birth and connections may have more greatness of mind than a monarch. But it would be inconsistent with the usual phraseology to say, "that merchant" or "that farmer acted greatly" (avec grandeur); unless, indeed, in very particular circumstances, and placing certain characters in striking opposition, we should, for example, make such a remark as the following: "The celebrated merchant who entertained Charles the Fifth in his own house, and lighted a fire of cinnamon wood with that prince's bond to him for fifty thousand ducats, displayed more greatness of soul than the emperor."
The title of "greatness" (grandeur) was formerly given to various persons possessing stations of dignity. French clergymen, when writing to bishops, still call them "your greatness." Those titles, which are lavished by sycophancy and caught at by vanity, are now little used.
Haughtiness is often mistaken for greatness (grandeur). He who is ostentatious of greatness displays vanity. But one becomes weary and exhausted with writing about greatness. According to the lively remark of Montaigne, "we cannot obtain it, let us therefore take our revenge by abusing it."
GREEK
Observations Upon the Extinction of the Greek Language at Marseilles
It is exceedingly strange that, as Marseilles was founded by a Greek colony, scarcely any vestige of the Greek language is to be found in Provence Languedoc, or any district of France; for we cannot consider as Greek the terms which were taken, at a comparatively modern date, from the Latins, and which had been adopted by the Romans themselves from the Greeks so many centuries before. We received those only at second hand. We have no right to say that we abandoned the word Got for that of Theos, rather than that of Deus, from which, by a barbarous termination, we have made Dieu.
It is clear that the Gauls, having received the Latin language with the Roman laws, and having afterwards received from those same Romans the Christian religion, adopted from them all the terms which were connected with that religion. These same Gauls did not acquire, until a late period, the Greek terms which relate to medicine, anatomy, and surgery.
After deducting all the words originally Greek which we have derived through the Latin, and all the anatomical and medical terms which were, in comparison, so recently acquired, there is scarcely anything left; for surely, to derive "abréger" from "brakus," rather than from "abreviare"; "acier" from "axi" rather than from "acies"; "acre" from "agros," rather than from "ager"; and "aile" from "ily" rather than from "ala" – this, I say, would surely be perfectly ridiculous.
Some have even gone so far as to say that "omelette" comes from "omeilaton" because "meli" in Greek signifies honey, and "oon" an egg. In the "Garden of Greek Roots" there is a more curious derivation still; it is pretended that "diner" (dinner) comes from "deipnein," which signifies supper.
As some may be desirous of possessing a list of the Greek words which the Marseilles colony may have introduced into the language of the Gauls, independently of those which came through the Romans, we present the following one:
Aboyer, perhaps from bauzein.
Affre, affreux, from afronos.
Agacer, perhaps from anaxein.
Alali, a Greek war-cry.
Babiller, perhaps from babazo.
Balle, from ballo.
Bas, from batys.
Blesser, from the aorist of blapto.
Bouteille, from bouttis.
Bride, from bryter.
Brique, from bryka.
Coin, from gonia.
Colère, from chole.
Colle, from colla.
Couper, from cop to.
Cuisse, perhaps from ischis.
Entraille, from entera.
Ermite, from eremos.
Fier, from fiaros.
Gargarizer, from gargarizein.
Idiot, from idiotes.
Maraud, from miaros.
Moquer, from mokeuo.
Moustache, from mustax.
Orgueil, from orge.
Page, from pais.
Siffler, perhaps from siffloo.
Tuer, thuein.
I am astonished to find so few words remaining of a language spoken at Marseilles, in the time of Augustus, in all its purity; and I am particularly astonished to find the greater number of the Greek words preserved in Provence, signifying things of little or no utility, while those used to express things of the first necessity and importance are utterly lost. We have not a single one remaining that signifies land, sea, sky, the sun, the moon, rivers, or the principal parts of the human body; the words used for which might have been expected to be transmitted down from the beginning through every succeeding age. Perhaps we must attribute the cause of this to the Visigoths, the Burgundians, and the Franks; to the horrible barbarism of all those nations which laid waste the Roman Empire, a barbarism of which so many traces yet remain.
GUARANTEE
A guarantee is a pledge by which a person renders himself responsible to another for something, and binds himself to secure him in the enjoyment of it. The word (garant) is derived from the Celtic and Teutonic "warrant." In all the words which we have retained from those ancient languages we have changed the w into g. Among the greater number of the nations of the North "warrant" still signifies assurance, guaranty; and in this sense it means, in English, an order of the king, as signifying the pledge of the king. When in the middle ages kings concluded treaties, they were guaranteed on both sides by a considerable number of knights, who bound themselves by oath to see that the treaty was observed, and even, when a superior education qualified them to do so, which sometimes happened, signed their names to it. When the emperor Frederick Barbarossa ceded so many rights to Pope Alexander III. at the celebrated congress of Venice, in 1117, the emperor put his seal to the instrument which the pope and cardinals signed. Twelve princes of the empire guaranteed the treaty by an oath upon the gospel; but none of them signed it. It is not said that the doge of Venice guaranteed that peace which was concluded in his palace. When Philip Augustus made peace in 1200 with King John of England, the principal barons of France and Normandy swore to the due observance of it, as cautionary or guaranteeing parties. The French swore that they would take arms against their king if he violated his word, and the Normans, in like manner, to oppose their sovereign if he did not adhere to his. One of the constables of the Montmorency family, after a negotiation with one of the earls of March, in 1227, swore to the observance of the treaty upon the soul of the king.
The practice of guaranteeing the states of a third party was of great antiquity, although under a different name. The Romans in this manner guaranteed the possessions of many of the princes of Asia and Africa, by taking them under their protection until they secured to themselves the possession of the territories thus protected. We must regard as a mutual guaranty the ancient alliance between France and Castile, of king to king, kingdom to kingdom, and man to man.
We do not find any treaty in which the guaranty of the states of a third party is expressly stipulated for before that which was concluded between Spain and the states-general in 1609, by the mediation of Henry IV. He procured from Philip III., king of Spain, the recognition of the United Provinces as free and sovereign states. He signed the guaranty of this sovereignty of the seven provinces, and obtained the signature of the same instrument from the king of Spain; and the republic acknowledged that it owed its freedom to the interference of the French monarch. It is principally within our own times that treaties of guaranty have become comparatively frequent. Unfortunately these engagements have occasionally produced ruptures and war; and it is clearly ascertained that the best of all possible guaranties is power.
GREGORY VII
Bayle himself, while admitting that Gregory was the firebrand of Europe, concedes to him the denomination of a great man. "That old Rome," says he, "which plumed itself upon conquests and military virtue, should have brought so many other nations under its dominion, redounds, according to the general maxims of mankind, to her credit and glory; but, upon the slightest reflection, can excite little surprise. On the other hand, it is a subject of great surprise to see new Rome, which pretended to value itself only on an apostolic ministry, possessed of an authority under which the greatest monarchs have been constrained to bend. Caron may observe, with truth, that there is scarcely a single emperor who has opposed the popes without feeling bitter cause to regret his resistance. Even at the present day the conflicts of powerful princes with the court of Rome almost always terminate in their confusion."
I am of a totally different opinion from Bayle. There will probably be many of a different one from mine. I deliver it however with freedom, and let him who is willing and able refute it.
1. The differences of the princes of Orange and the seven provinces with Rome did not terminate in their confusion; and Bayle, who, while at Amsterdam, could set Rome at defiance, was a happy illustration of the contrary.
The triumphs of Queen Elizabeth, of Gustavus Vasa in Sweden, of the kings of Denmark, of all the princes of the north of Germany, of the finest part of Helvetia, of the single and small city of Geneva – the triumphs, I say, of all these over the policy of the Roman court are perfectly satisfactory testimonies that it may be easily and successfully resisted, both in affairs of religion and government.
2. The sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles the Fifth; the pope (Clement VII.) a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo; Louis XIV. compelling Pope Alexander VII. to ask his pardon, and erecting even in Rome itself a monument of the pope's submission; and, within our own times, the easy subversion of that steady, and apparently most formidable support of the papal power, the society of Jesuits in Spain, in France, in Naples, in Goa, and in Paraguay – all this furnishes decisive evidence, that, when potent princes are in hostility with Rome, the quarrel is not terminated in their confusion; they may occasionally bend before the storm, but they will not eventually be overthrown.
When the popes walked on the heads of kings, when they conferred crowns by a parchment bull, it appears to me, that at this extreme height of their power and grandeur they did no more than the caliphs, who were the successors of Mahomet, did in the very period of their decline. Both of them, in the character of priests, conferred the investiture of empires, in solemn ceremony, on the most powerful of contending parties.
3. Maimbourg says: "What no pope ever did before, Gregory VIII. did, depriving Henry IV. of his dignity of emperor, and of his kingdoms of Germany and Italy."
Maimbourg is mistaken. Pope Zachary had, long before that, placed a crown on the head of the Austrasian Pepin, who usurped the kingdom of the Franks; and Pope Leo III. had declared the son of that Pepin emperor of the West, and thereby deprived the empress Irene of the whole of that empire; and from that time, it must be admitted, there has not been a single priest of the Romish church who has not imagined that his bishop enjoyed the disposal of all crowns.
This maxim was always turned to account when it was possible to be so. It was considered as a consecrated weapon, deposited in the sacristy of St. John of Lateran, which might be drawn forth in solemn and impressive ceremony on every occasion that required it. This prerogative is so commanding; it raises to such a height the dignity of an exorcist born at Velletri or Cività Vecchia, that if Luther, Œcolampadius, John Calvin, and all the prophets of the Cévennes, had been natives of any miserable village near Rome, and undergone the tonsure there, they would have supported that church with the same rage which they actually manifested for its destruction.
4. Everything, then, depends on the time and place of a man's birth, and the circumstances by which he is surrounded. Gregory VII. was born in an age of barbarism, ignorance, and superstition; and he had to deal with a young, debauched, inexperienced emperor, deficient in money, and whose power was contested by all the powerful lords of Germany.
We cannot believe, that, from the time of the Austrasian Charlemagne, the Roman people ever paid very willing obedience to Franks or Teutonians: they hated them as much as the genuine old Romans would have hated the Cimbri, if the Cimbri had obtained dominion in Italy. The Othos had left behind them in Rome a memory that was execrated, because they had enjoyed great power there; and, after the time of the Othos, Europe it is well known became involved in frightful anarchy.
This anarchy was not more effectually restrained under the emperors of the house of Franconia. One-half of Germany was in insurrection against Henry IV. The countess Mathilda, grand duchess, his cousin-german, more powerful than himself in Italy, was his mortal enemy. She possessed, either as fiefs of the empire, or as allodial property, the whole duchy of Tuscany, the territory of Cremona, Ferrara, Mantua, and Parma; a part of the Marches of Ancona, Reggio, Modena, Spoleto, and Verona; and she had rights, that is to say pretensions, to the two Burgundies; for the imperial chancery claimed those territories, according to its regular practice of claiming everything.
We admit, that Gregory VII. would have been little less than an idiot had he not exerted his strongest efforts to secure a complete influence over this powerful princess; and to obtain, by her means, a point of support and protection against the Germans. He became her director, and, after being her director, her heir.
I shall not, in this place, examine whether he was really her lover, or whether he only pretended to be so; or whether his enemies merely pretended it; or whether, in his idle moments, the assuming and ardent little director did not occasionally abuse the influence he possessed with his penitent, and prevail over a feeble and capricious woman. In the course of human events nothing can be more natural or common; but as usually no registers are kept of such cases; as those interesting intimacies between the directors and directed do not take place before witnesses, and as Gregory has been reproached with this imputation only by his enemies, we ought not to confound accusation with proof. It is quite enough that Gregory claimed the whole of his penitent's property.
5. The donation which he procured to be made to himself by the countess Mathilda, in the year 1077, is more than suspected. And one proof that it is not to be relied upon is that not merely was this deed never shown, but that, in a second deed, the first is stated to have been lost. It was pretended that the donation had been made in the fortress of Canossa, and in the second act it is said to have been made at Rome. These circumstances may be considered as confirming the opinion of some antiquaries, a little too scrupulous, who maintain that out of a thousand grants made in those times – and those times were of long duration – there are more than nine hundred evidently counterfeit.
There have been two sorts of usurpers in our quarter of the world, Europe – robbers and forgers.
6. Bayle, although allowing the title of Great to Gregory, acknowledges at the same time that this turbulent man disgraced his heroism by his prophecies. He had the audacity to create an emperor, and in that he did well, as the emperor Henry IV. had made a pope. Henry deposed him, and he deposed Henry. So far there is nothing to which to object – both sides are equal. But Gregory took it into his head to turn prophet; he predicted the death of Henry IV. for the year 1080; but Henry IV. conquered, and the pretended emperor Rudolph was defeated and slain in Thuringia by the famous Godfrey of Bouillon, a man more truly great than all the other three. This proves, in my opinion, that Gregory had more enthusiasm than talent.
I subscribe with all my heart to the remark of Bayle, that "when a man undertakes to predict the future, he is provided against everything by a face of brass, and an inexhaustible magazine of equivocations." But your enemies deride your equivocations; they also have a face of brass like yourself; and they expose you as a knave, a braggart, and a fool.
7. Our great man ended his public career with witnessing the taking of Rome by assault, in the year 1083. He was besieged in the castle, since called St. Angelo, by the same emperor Henry IV., whom he had dared to dispossess, and died in misery and contempt at Salerno, under the protection of Robert Guiscard the Norman.
I ask pardon of modern Rome, but when I read the history of the Scipios, the Catos, the Pompeys, and the Cæsars, I find a difficulty in ranking with them a factious monk who was made a pope under the name of Gregory VII.
But our Gregory has obtained even a yet finer title; he has been made a saint, at least at Rome. It was the famous cardinal Coscia who effected this canonization under Pope Benedict XIII. Even an office or service of St. Gregory VII. was printed, in which it was said, that that saint "absolved the faithful from the allegiance which they had sworn to their emperor."
Many parliaments of the kingdom were desirous of having this legend burned by the executioner: but Bentivoglio, the nuncio – who kept one of the actresses at the opera, of the name of Constitution, as his mistress, and had by her a daughter called la Legende; a man otherwise extremely amiable, and a most interesting companion – procured from the ministry a mitigation of the threatened storm; and, after passing sentence of condemnation on the legend of St. Gregory, the hostile party were contented to suppress it and to laugh at it.
