Here is confuted the second affection of too much love to our country; which love is falsely termed piety. Whence this affection springs, and what is our country properly and truly.
Then Langius smiling replied: "Certainly you are a marvelous pious young man: and I fear that the brother of Marcus Antonius is now in danger to be deprived of his surname. But it falls out fitly that this affection offers itself in sallying before his ensign: I will assault him therefore, and overthrow him lightly. And first will I take from him the spoil of that precious garment wherewith he is unworthily attired.
"This affection to our country is commonly called pietas, that is piety: why it should be so named I neither see nor can suffer it. For wherefore should we call it by the name of piety, which is an excellent virtue, and properly nothing else but a lawful and due honor and love towards God and our parents.
"Why should our country be placed in the midst between these? Because, say they, it is our most ancient and holiest mother. O fools, injurious to reason and nature herself: is she our mother? How? Or wherefore? Truly I see no such reason: and if you, Lipsius, if you be sharper sighted than I, lighten my dark senses.
"Is it because she first received us into this word? For so you seemed to affirm before. So might any taverner or innkeeper. Is it because she cherishes us? Much better does some silly maid or nurse. Is it because she nourishes us? So do cattle, trees, and corn daily: and, among the greater substances which do borrow nothing of the earth, the firmament, air, and water. Finally, change your habitation, and every other part of the world will do thus much for you.
"These are floating and fleeing words, savoring of nothing, but an unpleasant juice of popular opinion. They alone are our parents that began, shaped, and bore us: we are seed of their seed, blood of their blood, and flesh of their flesh. If any of these things agree any ways to our country, then I confess that I go about wrongfully to bereave it of this duty of piety.
"You will say that great learned clerics have so spoken of it. They have indeed so spoken, following the common opinion, but not that they were so persuaded themselves. But if you will follow the truth, you shall attribute that sacred and high title to God, and also, if you think good, to our parents; but as for this affection to our country, being first bridled and restrained to a mean, let it be contented in God's name with the title of Love or Charity.
"Yet is this only a contention about the name; let us come nearer to the thing itself. Which I do not wholly take away, but temper, and, as it were, scarify it with the lance of right reason. For as a vine if it is not pruned, spreads itself too far abroad, so do affections fly about with full sail being blown with the plausible puffs of popularity.
"And notwithstanding here by the way I confess—for I am not degenerated from a man, nor from a citizen—I confess, I say, that every one of us has an inclination and good will to his lesser country, the causes whereof I perceive are to you unknown. You would have it to be from nature: but the truth is, it grows of custom, or of some decree and ordinance.
"You will say that great learned clerics have so spoken of it. They have indeed so spoken, following the common opinion, but not that they were so persuaded themselves. But if you will follow the truth, you shall attribute that sacred and high title to God, and also, if you think good, to our parents; but as for this affection to our country, being first bridled and restrained to a mean, let it be contented in God's name with the title of Love or Charity.
"Yet is this only a contention about the name; let us come nearer to the thing itself. Which I do not wholly take away, but temper, and, as it were, scarify it with the lance of right reason. For as a vine if it is not pruned, spreads itself too far abroad, so do affections fly about with full sail being blown with the plausible puffs of popularity.
"And notwithstanding here by the way I confess—for I am not degenerated from a man, nor from a citizen—I confess, I say, that every one of us has an inclination and good will to his lesser country, the causes whereof I perceive are to you unknown. You would have it to be from nature: but the truth is, it grows of custom, or of some decree and ordinance.
"For after that men forsook their wild and savage manner of living, and began to build houses and walled towns, to join in society, and to use means offensive and defensive, behold then a certain communion necessarily began among them, and a social participation of diverse things. They parted the earth between them with certain limits and bounds; they had temples in common; also marketplaces, treasuries, seats of judgment; and principally ceremonies, rites, laws.
"All which things our greediness began in time so to esteem and make account of, as if they were our own in particular, and so they be in some sort, for that every private citizen had some interest in them, neither did they differ from private possessions, saving that they were not wholly in one man's power. This consociation and fellowship gave the form and fashion to a new erected state, which now we call properly the commonwealth, or our country.
"Wherein when men saw the chiefest stay of each person's safety to consist, laws were enacted for the succor and defense thereof; or at the least such customs were received by tradition from the predecessors to their posterity, that grew to be of like force as laws. Herehence it comes to pass that we rejoice at the good of the commonwealth, and be sorry for her harm; because our own private goods are secure by her safety, and are lost by her overthrow.
"From this fountain does spring the streams of our goodwill and love toward her; which affection in respect of the common good (the secret providence of God leading thereunto) our ancestors increased, by all possible means establish and maintaining the majesty of their country.
"It appears therefore in my judgment, that this affection had his beginning from custom, and not from nature, as you pretend. Else why should not the same measure of that affection be indifferently in all men? Why should the nobility and rich men have more care of their country than the poor people, who commonly take care for their private matters but none at all for the public affairs? Which thing falls out otherwise in all passions that be governed by the instinct of nature.
"It appears therefore in my judgment, that this affection had his beginning from custom, and not from nature, as you pretend. Else why should not the same measure of that affection be indifferently in all men? Why should the nobility and rich men have more care of their country than the poor people, who commonly take care for their private matters but none at all for the public affairs? Which thing falls out otherwise in all passions that be governed by the instinct of nature.
"Finally what reason can you allege that so small and light an occasion should oftentimes assuage, yea wholly extinguish it? See how every day some for anger, some for love, some for ambition forsake their country? And what a multitude are drawn away by that idol lucre? How many Italians forsaking Italy the queen of countries only for greediness of gain have removed their dwellings into France, Germany, yea even into Sarmatia? How many thousand Spaniards do ambition draw daily into another world from us? These arguments prove invincibly that the band whereby we are linked thus to our country is but external and accidental, in that it is so easily broken by one inordinate lust.
"Moreover, Lipsius, you are greatly deceived in describing this country of ours: for you tie it very narrowly to that native soil where we were born and had our education, with other like frivolous allegations, from whence you labor in vain to pick out natural causes of our affection toward her.
"Moreover, Lipsius, you are greatly deceived in describing this country of ours: for you tie it very narrowly to that native soil where we were born and had our education, with other like frivolous allegations, from whence you labor in vain to pick out natural causes of our affection toward her.
"And if it be the native soil where we were born that deserves this title of our country then were Brussels only my country, and Iscanum yours; and to some other man, a poor cottage or cell; yea unto many, not so much as a cottage, but a wood, or else the open field; what then? Shall my good will and affections be shut up within those narrow walls? Shall I settle my disposition and love upon one town or house as my country? What folly were that?
"You see also that by your description none are happier than those that are born in the woods and open fields, which are always flourishing, and seldom or never be subject to desolation or wasting. No, no, our country is not as you take it, but it is, some one state, or as it were one common ship, under the regiment of one prince, or one law: which I confess we ought to love, to defend, and to die for it; yet must it not drive us to lament, wail and despair. Well said the poet,
A happy quarrel is it and a good,
For country's cause to spend our dearest blood.
"He said not that we should weep and lament, but die for our country. For we must so far forth be good commonwealth's men, that we also retain the person of good and honest men, which we lose if we betake us to childish and womanlike lamentations.
"Last of all, Lipsius, I have you learn this one hidden and deep mystery, that if we respect the whole nature of man, all these earthly countries are vain and falsely so termed, except only in respect of the body, and not of the mind or soul, which descending down from that highest habitation, deems all the whole earth as a jail or prison, but heaven is our true and rightful country, whither let us advance all our cogitations, that we may freely say with Anaxagoras to such as foolishly ask us whether we have no regard to our country? Yes verily but yonder is our country, lifting our finger and mind up toward heaven."
For country's cause to spend our dearest blood.
"He said not that we should weep and lament, but die for our country. For we must so far forth be good commonwealth's men, that we also retain the person of good and honest men, which we lose if we betake us to childish and womanlike lamentations.
"Last of all, Lipsius, I have you learn this one hidden and deep mystery, that if we respect the whole nature of man, all these earthly countries are vain and falsely so termed, except only in respect of the body, and not of the mind or soul, which descending down from that highest habitation, deems all the whole earth as a jail or prison, but heaven is our true and rightful country, whither let us advance all our cogitations, that we may freely say with Anaxagoras to such as foolishly ask us whether we have no regard to our country? Yes verily but yonder is our country, lifting our finger and mind up toward heaven."
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