Ξυνόν ἐστι πᾶσι τὸ φρονέειν· ξὺν νόῳ λέγοντας ἰσχυρίζεσθαι χρὴ τῷ ξυνῷ πάντων ὅκωσπερ νόμῳ πόλις καὶ πόλιος ἰσχυροτέρως τρέφονται γὰρ πάντες οἱ ἀνθρώπινοι νόμοι ὑπὸ ἑνὸς τοῦ θείου· κρατέει γὰρ τοσοῦτον ὁκόσον ἐθέλει καὶ ἐξαρκέει πᾶσι καὶ περιγίνεται. Heraclitus of Ephesus. Cum lex aeterna sit ratio gubernationis in supremo gubernante, necesse est quod omnes rationes gubernationis quae sunt in inferioribus gubernantibus a lege aeterna deriventur. . . Unde omnes leges in quantum participant de ratione recta, in tantum derivantur a lege aeterna. Thomas Aquinas. 11 MAY 1337 HERTZ.05 421 INTRODUCTION. HOOKER'S life was nearly coincident with the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth. Born about the same time as Raleigh, Spenser, and Sir Philip Sidney; a few years later than Cervantes, Cardinal Bellarmine, and Paul Sarpi ; and only a few years earlier than Lord Bacon, Galileo, and Shakespeare, he belongs to that last quarter of the sixteenth century, in which the results of its earlier years, both good and evil, were becoming mature, and which was so fruitful in great men, great events, and new and bold beginnings in politics, religion, and philosophy. His education was under the characteristic influences which marked the age and reign of Elizabeth, and he lived to be one of the most original and worthy representatives of its spirit: the one adequate exponent of its religious ideas and policy. With these no one more fully sympathized; and no one conceived them in so comprehensive and masterly a manner. The results of the religious movement of the time had taken shape under the resolute but cautious hand of the Queen in a Church polity, which was thought at the time, and has proved to be, unique; but which has also proved singularly suited to the character of the English nation. Of this system, which looks like the growth of accident, though it was really rooted in the conditions of the people whose history it has since so profoundly affected, Hooker discerned the effective and governing principles; he divined what was permanent and capable of life Raleigh, 1552. Spenser, 1552, or 1553. Sidney, 1554. Galileo, 1564. |