History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [268]
Occam did not go quite so far as Marsiglio, but he worked out a completely democratic method of electing the General Council.
The conciliar movement came to a head in the early fifteenth century, when it was needed to heal the Great Schism. But having accomplished this task, it subsided. Its standpoint, as may be seen already in Marsiglio, was different from that afterwards adopted, in theory, by the Protestants. The Protestants claimed the right of private judgment, and were not willing to submit to a General Council. They held that religious belief is not a matter to be decided by any governmental machinery. Marsiglio, on the contrary, still aims at preserving the unity of the Catholic faith, but wishes this to be done by democratic means, not by the papal absolutism, In practice, most Protestants, when they acquired the government, merely substituted the King for the Pope, and thus secured neither liberty of private judgment nor a democratic method of deciding doctrinal questions. But in their opposition to the Pope they found support in the doctrines of the conciliar movement. Of all the schoolmen, Occam was the one whom Luther preferred. It must be said that a considerable section of Protestants held to the doctrine of private judgment even where the State was Protestant. This was the chief point of difference between Independents and Presbyterians in the English Civil War.
Occam's political works3 are written in the style of philosophic disputations, with arguments for and against various theses, sometimes not reaching any conclusion. We are accustomed to a more forthright kind of political propaganda, but in his day the form he chose was probably effective.
A few samples will illustrate his method and outlook.
There is a long treatise called 'Eight Questions Concerning the Power of the Pope.' The first question is whether one man can rightfully be supreme both in Church and State. The second: Is secular authority derived immediately from God or not? Third: Has the Pope the right to grant secular jurisdiction to the Emperor and other princes? Fourth: Does election by the electors give full powers to the German king? Fifth and sixth: What rights does the Church acquire through the right of bishops to anoint kings? Seventh: Is a coronation ceremony valid if performed by the wrong archbishop? Eighth: Does election by the electors give the German king the title of Emperor? All these were, at the time, burning questions of practical politics.
Another treatise is on the question whether a prince can obtain the goods of the Church without the Pope's permission. This is concerned to justify Edward III in taxing the clergy for his war with France. It will be remembered that Edward was an ally of the Emperor.
Then comes a 'Consultation on a matrimonial cause', on the question whether the Emperor was justified in marrying his cousin.
It will be seen that Occam did his best to deserve the protection of the Emperor's sword.
It is time now to turn to Occam's purely philosophical doctrines. On this subject there is a very good book, The Logic of William of Occam, by Ernest E. Moody. Much of what I shall have to say is based on this book, which takes a somewhat unusual view, but, I think, a correct one. There is a tendency in writers on history of philosophy to interpret men in the light of their successors, but this is generally a mistake. Occam has been regarded as bringing about the breakdown of scholasticism, as a precursor of Descartes or Kant or whoever might be the particular commentator's favourite among modern philosophers. According to Moody, with whom I agree, all this is a mistake. Occam, he holds, was mainly concerned