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Scalawag on the Web Sectory 10
Page 02
The Roman empire, as it existed in those days, must not be conceived of by the reader as united together under one compact and consolidated government. It was, on the other hand, a vast congeries of nations, widely dissimilar in every respect from each other, speaking various languages, and having various customs and laws. They were all, however, more or less dependent upon, and connected with, the great central power. Some of these countries were provinces, and were governed by officers appointed and sent out by the authorities at Rome. These governors had to collect the taxes of their provinces, and also to preside over and direct, in many important respects, the administration of justice. They had, accordingly, abundant opportunities to enrich themselves while thus in office, by collecting more money than they paid over to the government at home, and by taking bribes to favor the rich man's cause in court. Thus the more wealthy and prosperous provinces were objects of great competition among aspirants for office at Rome. Leading men would get these appointments, and, after remaining long enough in their provinces to acquire a fortune, would come back to Rome, and expend it in intrigues and maneuvers to obtain higher offices still.
The two years which followed John's return from Ireland, from August, 1210 to August 1212, form the period of his highest power. No attempt at resistance to his will anywhere disturbed the peace of England. Llewelyn, Prince of north Wales, husband of John's natural daughter Joanna, involved in border warfare with the Earl of Chester, was not willing to yield to the authority of the king, but two expeditions against him in 1211 forced him to make complete submission. A contemporary annalist remarks with truth that none of John's predecessors exercised so great an authority over Scotland, Wales, or Ireland as he, and we may add that none exercised a greater over England. The kingdom was almost in a state of blockade, and not only was unauthorized entrance into the country forbidden, but departure from it as well, except as the king desired. During these two years John's relations with the Church troubled him but little. Negotiations were kept up as before, but they led to nothing. On his return from the Welsh campaign the king met representatives of the pope at Northampton, one of whom was the Roman subdeacon Pandulf, whom John met later in a different mood. We have no entirely trustworthy account of the interview, but it was found impossible to agree upon the terms of any treaty which would bring the conflict to an end. The pope demanded a promise of complete obedience from John on all the questions that had caused the trouble, and restoration to the clergy of all their confiscated revenues, and to one or both of these demands the king refused to yield. Now it is that we begin to hear of threats of further sentences to be issued by the pope against John, or actually issued, releasing his subjects from their allegiance and declaring the king incapable of ruling, but if any step of that kind was taken, it had for the present no effect. The Christmas feast was kept as usual at Windsor, and in Lent of the next year John knighted young Alexander of Scotland, whose father had sent him to London to be married as his liege lord might please, though "without disparagement."
And now what about philosophy? I am not going into philosophical questions here. For that reason I am not going to describe biology as natural history, or anthropology as the natural history of man. Let philosophers discuss what "nature" is going to mean for them. In science the word is question-begging; and the only sound rule in science is to beg as few philosophical questions as you possibly can. Everything in the world is natural, of course, in the sense that things are somehow all akin--all of a piece. We are simply bound to take in the parts as parts of a whole, and it is just this fact that makes philosophy not only possible but inevitable. All the same, this fact does not prevent the parts from having their own specific natures and specific ways of behaving. The people who identify the natural with the physical are putting all their money on one specific kind of nature or behaviour that is to be found in the world. In the case of man they are backing the wrong horse. The horse to back is the horse that goes. As a going concern, however, anthropology, as part of evolutionary biology, is a history of vital tendencies which are not natural in the sense of merely physical.
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