Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

292 RENAISSANCE AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RATIONALISM
peace, to be had only if there is but one religion and only if that religion is
subjected to the jurisdiction of the prince. Nevertheless, he was convinced that
consciences could not be forced, only persuaded. He was forcefully attacked by
Dirk Coornhert, who believed that Lipsius betrayed their common cause of
tolerance. But Lipsius kept to his opinion that the unity and concord of the
country should not be placed in jeopardy. As Tacitus said, as a state is a single
body, it should be ruled by a single mind. Lipsius concluded from this that
monarchy is the superior form of government. A virtuous and prudent prince will
further the potentia, the power of the state, which he described (referring to
Cicero) as ‘the faculty regarding useful things to keep one’s own and to acquire
those of foreigners’. This Ciceronian realism was complemented by a Senecan
emphasis on sapientia, wisdom as the ultimate goal and moral end.
Lipsius’s practical intent shows in the guidelines for warfare he presented in
Book V of his Politics. Prince Maurice, who was not known for literary interests,
was an ardent reader of this text and applied it to practice with a lot of success.
However important this last aspect of Lipsius’s work may have been, his lasting
influence proved to be the introduction of Neostoicism into Dutch intellectual
life. In particular, Franco Burgersdijk, who held Lipsius’s chair at Leiden, was
keen to continue this programme, be it under the disguise of his own brand of
Neo-Aristotelianism, much more fashionable in Calvinist circles. We may
therefore speak of a Neostoic-Aristotelian programme, which is realistic,
practical and, for all its pagan overtones, presented as a complement to Calvinist
theology. Practical morality, that is, prudence and virtue, can be studied
independently of blessedness. Practical philosophy was studied as part of the
propaedeutical curriculum, in the ‘lower faculty’ in contradistinction to the
higher faculties of theology, law and medicine. Politics and ethics are central to
practical philosophy. In his Idea politica, (1644), Burgersdijk was in complete
agreement with Lipsius except for one important point. He tried to accommodate
Lipsius’s notion of unity and concord and his subsequent emphasis on monarchy
with the by then established Dutch practice of aristocracy supplemented with the
institution of the stadhouder, the military leadership of the Princes of Orange.
Central to this accommodation was Burgersdijk’s argument that the best form of
government may not always concur with the preferences of the people. Indeed,
for a people of shopkeepers and tradesmen, liberty is an important asset, which
they unwillingly forgo. Therefore, Burgersdijk tried to formulate the principles
that may promote unity and concord in a mixed constitution. In doing so, he
provided for the adherents of the Orangist party, who sustained the Princes of
Orange against the more specifically aristocratic preferences of the States party
that consisted of the majority of the regenten. We shall see this Burgersdijkian
concept of a mixed, Orangist constitution reappear in Spinoza’s treatment of
monarchy in the Tractatus Politicus.
In moral philosophy, too, Burgersdijk continued and improved upon the lines
set out by Lipsius. Although Burgersdijk subscribes to the opinion that we aim at
good things when we understand them to be good, he is not content to leave this