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9 - Milton and Natural Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2009

R. S. White
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia, Perth
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Summary

[S]eeing that persuasion certainly is a more winning and more manlike way to keep men in obedience than fear, that to such laws as were of principal moment, there should be used as an induction some well-tempered discourse, shewing how good, how gainful, how happy it must needs be to live according to honesty and justice; which being uttered with those native colours and graces of speech, as true eloquence, the daughter of virtue, can best bestow upon her mother's praises, would so incite, and in a manner charm, the multitude into the love of that which is really good, as to embrace it ever after, not of custom and awe, which most men do, but out of choice and purpose, with true and constant delight.

(The Reason of Church Government, ii, 439)

A modest but important work by John Milton is known as On Education. It was written in 1644 and addressed to Master Samuel Hartlib. Milton's programme for educating the young begins with language, regarded as ‘but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known’ (iii, 464). The ‘instrument’ is like Sidney's version of poetic artifice, a delightful induction in the tradition of Sidney's theory of poetry, as invoked in the headpiece to this chapter:

I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hillside, where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was no more charming.

(iii, 467)
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1996

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  • Milton and Natural Law
  • R. S. White, University of Western Australia, Perth
  • Book: Natural Law in English Renaissance Literature
  • Online publication: 17 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511553400.010
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  • Milton and Natural Law
  • R. S. White, University of Western Australia, Perth
  • Book: Natural Law in English Renaissance Literature
  • Online publication: 17 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511553400.010
Available formats
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  • Milton and Natural Law
  • R. S. White, University of Western Australia, Perth
  • Book: Natural Law in English Renaissance Literature
  • Online publication: 17 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511553400.010
Available formats
×