Religion & Philosophy

Current Books Ocean expeditions of eunuch admiral “cold, cruel discipline that...is one of the Zheng He: “A few catastrophic calls by some lubricants of Asia’s great economic Chinese emperors in Zheng He’s machine,” fueling the vast region’s “com- time . helped send all of Asia into a tailspin petitive advantage”—and cite as an illustra- from which it is only now recovering.” As an tion the practice of selling young girls into even partial explanation of events from prostitution. If that were the key to prosper- Afghanistan to Japan over many centuries, this ity, Asia would have taken off centuries ago. is paltry. Elsewhere, the authors speak of the —Jonathan Mirsky Religion & Philosophy have freely exercised their historical imagi- A BISHOP’S TALE: nation, piecing together hints from the Mathias Hovius among His Flock archives to conjecture about the bishop’s in Seventeenth-Century Flanders. close friends, his private conversations, his By Craig Harline and Eddy Put. food and drink, and even his nightclothes. Yale Univ. Press. 384 pp. $27.95 The individuals they depict emerge as believ- able characters, sometimes drawn with thick s students are quick to complain, brush strokes but real personalities nonethe- Agood academic histories too often less. We come to feel considerable sympathy make for amazingly dull reading. To the for Hovius himself, even though he hounded short list of exceptions for early modern his enemies mercilessly and once buried a Europe—including Carlo Ginzburg’s The woman alive for her religious beliefs. Cheese and the Worms (1980), Natalie Davis’s The Return of Martin Guerre (1983), and Steven Ozment’s The Bürgermeister’s Daughter (1996)—add A Bishop’s Tale. The Catholic bishop of the title, Mathias Hovius (1542–1620), lived in what became the Spanish Netherlands. As a young scholar, cathedral canon, and, eventually, archbishop of Mechelen, he wit- nessed the great events of his age— wars and rebellions, Reformation and Counter Reformation. He was nobody exceptional, “simply a flesh-and-blood prelate,” according to Harline, professor of history at Brigham Young University, and Put, senior assistant at the Belgian National Archives. But Hovius left behind voluminous records, corre- spondence, and a daybook that St. Eloi Preaching (1626), by Adriaan De Bie once ran to 10 volumes (all but one have been lost). If Harline and Put know how to make his- Rather than write a traditional biography of torical figures come to life, they also know a thing Hovius, the authors set out to immerse them- or two about plot. The book begins in medias selves and their readers in his world. They res, on a day that will end with Hovius hiding 136 Wilson Quarterly in a wardrobe while Protestant troops sack his poetry, the best-selling novel The Last Puritan city and pillage his church. After a brief flash- (1935), and the three-volume autobiography back to his early years, the authors move Persons and Places (1944–53). By the standards through the compelling incidents of the bish- of most contemporary philosophers, who seem op’s life. Although their account may read like to regard a commitment to impenetrability, a hard-to-put-down historical novel, the source abstractness, academicism, and inaccessibility notes demonstrate that Harline and Put are as the badge of professionalism, Santayana thoroughgoing archive rats. would appear to be not only a lightweight but A charming final chapter lays out the argu- an impostor and a traitor to his class. How ment that is implicit all along: In a world could a refined, playful, jargon-free writer who where bishops were struggling to implement the gives so much literary pleasure have anything decrees of the reforming Council of Trent profound to convey? (1545–63), “religious life was a constant nego- To his credit, Singer, a professor of philoso- tiation among all parties rather than a simple phy at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- matter of the hierarchy proclaiming and the nology and the author of valuable studies of the flock obeying.” Throughout the book, we see philosophy of love, has little patience for such Hovius negotiating, cajoling, threatening, narrow perspectives. He has been a serious stu- compromising, and bargaining, in a struggle to dent of Santayana for many years, and with make the church in his archdiocese conform to this small book he sets out to guide us to the his vision of what it should be, a task that some- heart of Santayana’s achievement. In his view, times pitted him against his superiors in Rome. the philosopher’s flair is a matter of substance Nothing was easy. as well as style: Santayana, “more than any The book also makes a second, unstated other great philosopher in the English lan- argument. Published with the academic impri- guage,” sought to “harmonize” literary and matur of Yale University Press, A Bishop’s Tale philosophical styles of writing, making the cen- proves by example that a good academic history trality of the humanistic imagination “a fun- can also tell a good story. If academics take up damental resource in his doctrinal outlook.” The its model of accessible yet rigorous historical magnificent prose was not mere ornamentation scholarship, the not-so-saintly archbishop will serving to soften the harsh lines of an otherwise indeed have worked a miracle. unadorned philosophy. The literary and the —Laura Ackerman Smoller philosophical components were inseparable for him. The novelist Somerset Maugham lament- GEORGE SANTAYANA: ed that “it was a loss to American literature Literary Philosopher. when Santayana decided to become a By Irving Singer. Yale Univ. Press. philosopher rather than a novelist.” 256 pp. $25 Maugham was paying tribute to the philosopher’s prodigious gifts of imagery and or the dwindling handful of readers metaphor, as well as hinting that the writing Facquainted with the elegant, offbeat writ- might have been even better had it not been ings of the Spanish-born American philoso- so laden with ideas. But that, as Singer pher George Santayana (1863–1952), the argues, misses the point of Santayana’s work, appearance of a serious publication about him which aimed to transcend the divide that is cause for celebration. It is both astonishing and both literati and professional philosophers tragic that the works of such a talented thinker have been intent on preserving. Singer should have fallen so quickly into obscurity. applies this argument to some of Santayana’s Tragic, but indicative—and therefore not chief works, reinforcing the case for the cre- entirely unpredictable. Santayana was that ative imagination while weighing the rarest of beasts, a philosopher who was also a cul- strengths and weaknesses of the oeuvre. tivated man of letters, with a superlative gift for Most of the book’s contents have been producing vivid and evocative writing across the published before, at different times and in full range of forms—philosophical treatises, diverse places, and so the text often has the essays, sketches, dialogues, literary criticism, unfortunate feel of a collection of fugitive Autumn 2000 137.

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