11 - Discourses (2) Rebellion, tumult and war

Summary

Rebellion, being nothing but a renewed war … of itself is neither good nor evil, more than any other war; but is just or unjust, according to the cause or manner of it.

(Sidney, Discourses, p. 457)

he is a fool who knows not, that swords were given to men, that none might be slaves, but such as know not how to use them.

(Sidney, Discourses, pp. 291–2)

PART TWO: PRACTICE: COMMONWEALTHS VERSUS MONARCHIES (ch. 2, sections 11–29, pp. 110–248)

THE REPLY TO FILMER: PART I

In the last section of the previous chapter we discussed the building materials for Sidney's political architecture (liberty, reason, and virtue), and the purpose of the resulting construction, that of other human arts and sciences – the good and improvement of man. In this section we will see this schema of principles pushed into practice, and in the process what Sidney took to be the consequences of their absence, as well as their presence. ‘The bestial barbarity in which many nations, especially of Africa, America, and Asia, now live, shows what human nature is, if it be not improved by art and discipline.’

This is the first section in which Sidney departs significantly from Filmer's text to mount an independent course of instruction of his own. Filmer's attack on the classical republics leads Sidney into an extended lecture on commonwealths which is a clear amplification of the Vindication's harangue on the same topic.