Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe
Dante Alighieri · en
The disorder of the faculties may arise, however, in another way. The
combative or spirited element, rather than the senses, may get out of
hand, and lead to crimes of violence. Violence, like incontinence, is
spontaneous enough in its personal origin, and would not be odious if it
did not inflict, and intend to inflict, harm on others; so that besides
incontinence, there is malice in it. Ill-will to others may arise from
pride, because one loves to be superior to them, or from envy, because
one abhors that they should seem superior to oneself; or through desire
for vengeance, because one smarts under some injury. Sins of these kinds
are more serious than those of foolish incontinence; they complicate the
moral world more; they introduce endless opposition of interests, and
perpetual, self-propagating crimes. They are hateful. Dante feels less
pity for those who suffer by them: he remembers the sufferings these
malefactors have themselves caused, and he feels a sort of joy in
joining the divine justice, and would gladly lash them himself.
Worse still than violence, however, is guile: the sin of those who in
the service of their intemperance or their malice have abused the gift
of reason. _Corruptio optimi pessima_; and to turn reason, the faculty
that establishes order, into a means of organizing disorder, is a
perversity truly satanic: it turns evil into an art. But even this
perversity has stages; and Dante distinguishes ten sorts of dishonesty
or simple fraud, as well as three sorts of treachery.
Besides these positive transgressions there is a possibility of general
moral sluggishness and indifference. This Dante, with his fervid nature,
particularly hates. He puts the Laodiceans in the fringe of his hell;
within the gate, that they may be without hope, but outside of limbo,
that they may have torments to endure, and be stung by wasps and
hornets into a belated activity.[11]
To these vices, known to Aristotle, the Catholic moralist was obliged to
add two others: original sin, of which spontaneous disbelief is one
consequence, and heresy, or misbelief, after a revelation has been given
and accepted. Original sin, and the paganism that goes with it, if they
lead to nothing worse, are a mere privation of excellence and involve,
in eternity merely a privation of joy: they are punished in limbo. There
sighs are heard, but no lamentation, and the only sorrow is to live in
desire without hope. This fate is most appropriately imputed to the
noble and clear-sighted in the hereafter, since it is so often their
experience here. Dante was never juster than in this stroke.[12] Heresy,
on the other hand, is a kind of passion when honest, or a kind of fraud
when politic; and it is punished as pride in fiery tombs,[13] or as
faction by perpetual gaping wounds and horrible mutilations.[14]