Primum Mobile Research Articles

In Search of a ‘Just and Lasting Peace’: The Treaty of 1783, Louis XVI, Vergennes, and the Regeneration of the Realm

One scarcely, or rather never, sees heroes without ambition. This noble passion (as those who flatter them call it) is the principle of all their great actions, the primum mobile of all their endeavours and to which all else usually yields. The one whose history I begin is of a completely different character ... He conducted numerous armies abroad, he performed marvels of valour, but the desire of his own glory had no part in all that ... His religion, his zeal for the glory of God and for the good of his state took the place in his person of the most passionate emotions of ambition, to act not as a profane hero but as a Christian hero. Pere Daniel on Louis IX in his Histoire de France

IMAGERY INPARADISOXXVII

AbstractThe 27th canto has long been recognized as one of the dramatic highlights in Dante's Paradiso. Broadly speaking, it may be divided into three parts: St. Peter's denunciation of his unworthy successors (vv. 10–66); the return of the blessed to the Empyrean and the ascent of Dante and his guide to the Primum Mobile (67–120); Beatrice's invective (121–148). In this article, I shall be concerned with seven images—those contained in vv. 13–15; 28–36; 67–72; 82–84; 124–126; 136–138; 145–147—and their structural ramifications, all intimately bound up with the essential meaning of the canto and the message of the whole Comedy.

"A National Property": Richard Claiborne's Tobacco Treatise for Poland

Not war alone but commerce also makes strange bedfellows, or at least acquaintances. In demonstration whereof it is appropriate-the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the planting of tobacco in Virginia having been celebrated during i962-to reveal that the sweet-scented variety of that weed served as primum mobile in the bringing together of two diverse personalities. Each is now forgotten by his country. Each probably deserves better. Whether they do or no, what they jointly produced during a few weeks of their busy lives, in a nation alien to both, would appear to stand today as a unique thing and hence deserving of recognition. The production is a detailed account of tobacco culture in Tidewater Virginia from seedtime through storage, composed at London in English, then translated into Polish. The Poles have been puffing tobacco since about i585, when Sultan Murad III of the Ottoman Empire dispatched some dried leaves as a present to King Stephen Bathory. Yet in our time one of the world's most comprehensive codifications of tobacco literature fails to record the existence of a single separate title treating the specific subject of its cultivation in Poland.1 The man who, by translating a stranger's manuscript into his native tongue, increased the sum total of this canon by one was the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Saint James's, Franciszek Bukaty (i747-97). Bukaty (pronounced boo-kot-tee) came to England in I771 to begin his diplomatic career as secretary there to the then Minister Tadeusz Burzyn'ski. In the autumn of I772 he replaced the latter as resident, and in February 1789 was elevated to ministerial rank. He served his monarch well -Stanislas II Poniatowski, last king of Poland-and was well rewarded, if not by an impressive salary at least by investiture with such honors as the Orders of Saint Stanislas and of the White Eagle. For the King esteemed this industrious, cultured representative of the minor gentry who spoke his

The Crystalline Sphere and the “Waters Above” in Paradise Lost

Since 1695, when Patrick Hume, Milton's first annotator, published by subscription The Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton, the editors of Paradise Lost have consistently held that the “waters above the firmament” in the Miltonic cosmology are synonymous with or are contained in the crystalline sphere. I propose to demonstrate that in spite of their accord Milton's editors have been mistaken; that in the geocentric universe of Paradise Lost the crystalline sphere has only the functional role originally assigned to it in the thirteenth century by the astronomer-king Alphonso of Spain; and that the “waters above,” derived from theological rather than scientific sources, were located by the poet outside the primum mobile and never by him confused or identified with the crystalline sphere. This view, contrary to the tenor of historic scholarship, was put forth by the Jonathan Richardsons, father and son, early and sometimes disparaged commentators on Milton. In their Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost (London, 1734), they explicate P.L. VII.269 thus: “as Moses Gen. i. 7. says there were Waters above and Under the Firmament, Milton Supposes a Chrystalline Ocean, a Sea Clear as the Purest Chryslal, flowing round the New Creation, a Fence (beside the Wall, III, 721) against Chaos. But this is not the Chrystalline mention'd III.482. That was a Sphere, and for a Different use, nor is it a part of Milton's System.” Apparently no serious attention hitherto has been paid to this lone dissenting opinion. It is hoped that this study will encourage a fresh examination of several passages in Paradise Lost and that it will contribute to the understanding of Milton's cosmology as a whole.

Professor Schumpeter's Theory of Innovation

PROFESSOR Schumpeter is known primarily as a business-cycle theorist, but his fundamental interest is much broader than this reputation would suggest. A careful reading of his works clearly shows that objective is nothing less than to lay bare anatomy of economic change in a capitalist society. English and American economics, on other hand, has traditionally been content to confine its attention to what may be called normal functioning of capitalist economy. Such an approach, of course, does not exclude treatment of business cycle, but it does exclude larger problems of change and development, which are customarily regarded as lying within province of economic historian. The most important part of Professor Schumpeter's theory of economic development which falls within traditional scope of Anglo-American economics is that which is concerned with business cycles. Now I do not mean to suggest that there is any objection to regarding Professor Schumpeter as a business-cycle theorist, for he is certainly one of most distinguished contributors to this branch of economics; but circumstance should not be allowed, as it too frequently has, to obscure his no less distinguished and important achievements in clarifying processes of economic change. In this paper I shall ignore business-cycle problems and attempt to bring into sharp relief Professor Schumpeter's views on mechanism of economic change in capitalist economy. Professor Schumpeter's starting point is an economy from which change (though not growth) is assumed to be absent.' In other words, specific factor that causes change is abstracted. The resulting economic system is called because it is found to run on, year in and year out, in essentially same channels. The circular flow is in no sense conceived as an unrealistic construction; rather, it is an abstract construction which is intended to portray consequences of a limited number of very real economic forces. From this point, procedure is comprised of three steps: first, causative factor of change entrepreneur or innovator is analyzed as a pure type in abstraction from its economic environment; second, factor of change is inserted into model of circular flow; and third, interaction of innovator with forces at work in circular flow is subjected to exhaustive analysis. What emerges is a process of development which displays specific wave-like form of business cycle. This simplified version of Professor Schumpeter's method is intended to focus attention upon certain questions which are of crucial importance in any final evaluation of his theory. Has he really isolated and abstracted for analysis primum mobile of change? Is picture of circular flow fully satisfactory? Is result of joining two elements a correct representation of essentials of capitalist reality? The causative factor in according to Professor Schumpeter, is innovation, which is defined as doing things differently in realm of economic life. 2 If this were interpreted to mean no more than that the cause of change is change, it would, of course, be a mere petitio principii; but such an interpretation would be a misreading of Professor Schumpeter's meaning. Innovation is activity or function of a particular set of individuals called entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur is a sociological type that can be isolated and investigated independently of consequences which follow from actions of entrepreneur. Hence any suspicion of circular reasoning is unfounded. What are characteristics of entrepreneur? First, of course, ability to appreciate possibilities of an innovation; whether or not he is also discoverer or inventor of innovation is a matter of minor consequence. But even more 1 For distinction between change (or development) and growth, see J. A. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development (Cambridge, Mass., I934), Ch. ii. 2J. A. Schumpeter, Business Cycles (New York, I939), Vol. i, p. 84.

X. On the Chinese year

All investigation into the Chinese knowledge of astronomy tends only to prove, that before the introduction of that science into the empire, first by the Arabians, and afterwards by the European missionaries, they were wholly ignorant of its principles. It is true that Confucius has recorded thirty-six eclipses of the sun, the greater number of which have been verified by the calculations of European astronomers: but, as has been very truly observed, the recording an eclipse may prove the authenticity of historical annals, while, at the same time, it proves nothing as to the existence of astronomical science. As far as related to the mere observation of the sky, the Chinese have, from the earliest periods, been very particular and assiduous. The remark of Du Halde, that “all these observations are not a little serviceable in ascertaining their chronology,” is very true, but they by no means prove (what he sometimes appears desirous to establish), that the Chinese were astronomers. On this one subject, that singular nation has deviated from its established prejudices and maxims against introducing what is foreign; and that a people so self-sufficient and vain, should at once, in open violation of their general practice, have adopted the science of foreigners, and raised its professors to high dignities, is the strongest possible proof that they had no science of their own.* It even appears that they have in former times adopted the very errors of European astronomy. The writer of this discovered, in an old Chinese book, the most exact delineation of the Ptolemaic system, with its crystalline orbs, primum mobile, &c. &c. and the earth occupying a conspicuous place in the centre of all. Indeed it is impossible not to smile at the idea of attributing any science to a people whose learned books are filled with such trumpery as the diagrams of Fo-hi, and a hundred other puerilities of the same kind.