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HOOKER, RICHARD (1553-1600)

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 674 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HOOKER, See also:RICHARD (1553-1600) , See also:English writer, author of the See also:Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, son of Richard Vowell or Hooker, was See also:born at Heavitree, near the See also:city of See also:Exeter, about the end of 1J53 or beginning of 1554. Vowell was the See also:original name of the See also:family, but was gradually dropped, and in the 15th See also:century its members were known as Vowell See also:alias Hooker. At school, not only his facility in mastering his tasks, but his intellectual inquisitiveness and his See also:fine moral qualities, attracted the See also:special See also:notice of his teacher, who strongly recommended his parents to educate him for the See also:church. Though well connected, they were, however, somewhat straitened in their worldly circumstances, and Hooker was indebted for See also:admission to the university to his See also:uncle, See also:John Hooker alias Vowell, See also:chamberlain of Exeter, and in his See also:day a See also:man of some See also:literary repute, who induced See also:Bishop See also:Jewel to become his See also:patron and to bestow on him a clerk's See also:place in Corpus Christi See also:College, See also:Oxford. To- this Hooker was admitted in 1568. Bishop Jewel died in See also:September 1571, but Dr See also:William See also:Cole, See also:president of the college, from the strong See also:interest he See also:felt in the See also:young man, on See also:account at once of his See also:character and his abilities, spontaneously offered to take the bishop's place as his patron; and shortly afterwards Hooker, by his own labours as a See also:tutor, became See also:independent of gratuitous aid. Two of his pupils, and these his favourite ones, were See also:Edwin See also:Sandys, afterwards author of Europae See also:speculum, and See also:George See also:Cranmer, See also:grand-See also:nephew of the See also:archbishop. Hooker's reputation as a tutor soon became very high, for he had employed his five years at the university to such See also:good purpose as not only to have acquired See also:great proficiency in the learned See also:languages, but to have joined to this a wide and varied culture which had delivered him from the bondage of learned pedantry; in addition to which he is said to have possessed a remarkable See also:talent for communicating knowledge in a clear and interesting manner, and to have exercised a special See also:influence over his pupils' intellectual and moral tendencies. In See also:December 1593 he was elected See also:scholar of his college; in-See also:July 1577 he proceeded to M.A., and in September of the same See also:year he was admitted a See also:fellow. In 1579 he was appointed by the See also:chancellor of the university to read the public See also:Hebrew lecture, a See also:duty which he continued to See also:discharge till he See also:left Oxford. Not See also:long after his admission into See also:holy orders, about 1581, he was appointed to preach at St See also:Paul's See also:Cross; and, according to See also:Walton, he was so kindly entertained by Mrs Churchman, who kept the Shunamite's See also:house where the preachers were boarded, that he permitted her to choose him a wife, " promising upon a See also:fair See also:summons to return to See also:London and accept of her choice." The See also:lady selected by her was" her daughter See also:Joan," who, says the same authority, " found him neither beauty nor portion; and for her conditions they were too like that 'wife's which is by See also:Solomon compared to a dripping house." It is probable that Walton has exaggerated the simplicity and passiveness of Hooker in the See also:matter, but though, as See also:Keble observes with See also:justice, his writings betray uncommon shrewdness and quickness of observation, as well as a vein of keenest See also:humour, it would appear that either gratitude or some other impulse had on this occasion led his See also:judgment astray. After his See also:marriage he was, about the end of 1584, presented to the living of See also:Drayton See also:Beauchamp in See also:Buckinghamshire.

In the following year he received a visit from his two pupils, Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer, who found him with the Odes of See also:

Horace in his See also:hand, tending the See also:sheep while the servant was at See also:dinner, after which, when they on the return of the servant accompanied him to his house, " Richard was called to See also:rock the See also:cradle." Finding him so engrossed by worldly and domestic cares, " they stayed but till the next See also:morning,"and, greatly grieved at his narrow circumstances and unhappy domestic See also:condition, " left him to the See also:company of his wife Joan." The visit had, however, results of the highest moment, not only in regard to the career of Hooker, but in regard to English literature and English philosophical thought. Sandys prevailed on his See also:father, the archbishop of See also:York, to recommend Hooker for presentation to the mastership of the See also:Temple, and Hooker, though his " wish was rather to gain a better See also:country living," having agreed after some hesitation to become a See also:candidate, the patent conferring upon him the mastership was granted on the 17th of See also:March 1584/5. The See also:rival candidate was See also:Walter Travers, a Presbyterian and evening lecturer in the same church. Being continued in the lectureship after the See also:appointment of Hooker, Travers was in the See also:habit of attempting a refutation in the evening of what Hooker had spoken in the morning, Hooker again replying on the following See also:Sunday; so it was said " the forenoon See also:sermon spake See also:Canterbury, the afternoon See also:Geneva." On account of the keen feeling displayed by the partisans of both, Archbishop See also:Whitgift deemed it prudent to prohibit the See also:preaching of Travers, whereupon he presented a See also:petition to the See also:council to have the See also:prohibition recalled. Hooker published an See also:Answer to the Petition of Mr Travers, and also printed several sermons bearing on special points of the controversy; but, feeling strongly the unsatisfactory nature of such an isolated and fragmentary discussion of See also:separate points, he resolved to compose an elaborate and exhaustive See also:treatise, exhibiting the fundamental principles by which the question in dispute must be decided. It is probable that the See also:work was begun in the latter See also:half of 1586, and he had made considerable progress with it before, with a view to its completion, he petitioned Whitgift to be removed to a country parsonage, in See also:order that, as he said, " I may keep myself in See also:peace and privacy, and behold See also:God's blessing See also:spring out of my See also:mother See also:earth, and eat my own See also:bread without oppositions." His See also:desire was granted in 1591 by a presentation to the rectory of Boscombe near See also:Salisbury. There he completed the See also:volume containing the first four of the proposed Eight Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. It was entered at Stationers' See also:Hall on the 9th of March 1592, but was not published till 1593 or 1594. In July 1595 he was promoted by the See also:crown to the rectory of Bishopsbourne near Canterbury, where he lived to see the completion of the fifth See also:book in 1597. In the passage from London to See also:Gravesend some See also:time in 1600 he caught a severe See also:cold from which he never recovered; but, notwithstanding great weakness and See also:constant suffering, he " was solicitous in his study," his one desire being " to live to finish the three remaining books of Polity." His See also:death took place on the 2nd of See also:November of the same year. A volume professing to contain the See also:sixth and eighth books of the Polity was published at London in 1648, but the bulk of the sixth book, as has been shown by Keble, is an entire deviation from the subject on which Hooker proposed to treat, and doubtless the genuine copy, known to have been completed, has been lost. The seventh book, which was published in a new edition of the work by See also:Gauden in 1662, and the eighth book, may be regarded as in substance the See also:composition of Hooker; but, as, in addition to wanting his final revision, they have been very unskilfully edited, if they have not been manipulated for theological purposes, their statements in regard to doubtful matters must be received with cite reserve, and no reliance can be placed on their testimony where their meaning contradicts that of other portions of the Polity.

The conception of Hooker in his later years, which we See also:

form from the various accessible See also:sources, is that of a See also:person of See also:low-stature and not immediately impressive See also:appearance, much See also:bent by the influence of sedentary and meditative habits, of quiet and retiring See also:manners, and discoloured in complexion and worn and marked in feature from the hard See also:mental toil which he had expended on his great work. There seems, however, exaggeration in Walton's statement as to the meanness of his See also:dress; and Walton certainly misreads his character when he portrays him as a See also:kind of ascetic mystic. Though he was unworldly and See also:simple in his desires, and engrossed in the purpose to which he had devoted his See also:life—the " completion of the Polity "—his he discovered in See also:Augustine and See also:Thomas See also:Aquinas, but the intellectual See also:atmosphere of his See also:age was different from that which surrounded them ; he was acted upon by new and more various impulses enabling him to imbibe more thoroughly the spirit of See also:Greek thought which. was the source of their See also:inspiration, and thus to reach a higher and freer region than See also:scholasticism, and in a sense to inaugurate See also:modern See also:philosophy in See also:England. It may be admitted that his principles are only partially and in some degree capriciously wrought out—that if he is not under the dominion of intellectual tendencies leading to opposite results there are occasional blanks and gaps in his See also:argument where he seems sometimes to be groping after a meaning which he cannot fully grasp; but he is often charged with obscurity simply because readers of various theological See also:schools, beholding in his principles what seem the outline and See also:justification of their own ideas, are disappointed when they find that these outlines instead of acquiring as they narrowly examine them the full and definite form of their anticipations, widen out into a region beyond their notions and sympathies, and therefore from their point of view enveloped in mist and shade. It is the exposition of philosophical principles in the first and second books of the Polity, and not the application of these principles in the remaining books that gives the work its See also:standard place in English literature. It was intended to be an answer to the attacks of the Presbyterians on the Episcopalian polity and customs, but no See also:attempt is made directly to oust See also:Presbyterianism from the place it then held in the Church of England. The work must rather be regarded as a remonstrance against the narrow ground chosen by the Presbyterians for their basis of attack, Hooker's exact position being that " a See also:necessity of polity and See also:regiment may be held in all churches without holding any form to be necessary." The See also:general purpose of his reasoning is to vindicate See also:Episcopacy from objections that had been urged against it, but he attains a result which has other and wider consequences than this. The fundamental principle on which he bases his reasoning is the unity and all-embracing character of See also:law—law " whose seat," he beautifully says, " is the bosom of God, whose See also:voice the See also:harmony of the See also:world." Law—as operative in nature, as regulating each man's individual character and actions, as seen in the formations of See also:societies and governments—is equally a manifestation and development of the divine order according to which God Himself acts, is the expression in various forms of the divine See also:reason. He makes a distinction between natural and See also:positive laws, the one being eternal and immutable, the other varying according to See also:external necessity and expediency; and he includes all the forms of See also:government under laws that are positive and therefore alterable according to circumstances. Their application is to be determined by reason, reason enlightened and strengthened by every variety of knowledge, discipline and experience. The leading feature in his See also:system is the high place assigned to reason, for, though affirming that certain truths necessary to salvation could be made known only by special divine See also:revelation, he yet elevates reason into the criterion by which these truths are to be judged, and the standard to determine what in revelation is temporal and what eternal. " It is not the word of God itself," he says, " which doth or possibly can assure us that we do well to think it His word." At the same time he saves himself from the dangers of abstract and rash theorizing by a deep and See also:absolute regard for facts, the diligent and accurate study of which he makes of the first importance to the proper use of reason.

" The general and perpetual voice of men is," he says, " as the See also:

sentence of God Himself. For that which all men have at all times learned, nature herself must needs have taught; and, God being the author of nature, her voice is but His See also:instrument." Applying his principles to man individually, the See also:foundation of morality is, ac-cording to Hooker, immutable, and rests" on that law which God from the beginning hath set Himself to do all things by "; this law is to be discovered by reason; and the perfection which reason teaches us to strive after is stated, with characteristic breadth of conception and regard to the facts of human nature, to be " a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth, either as necessary supplements, or as beauties or ornaments there-of ; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly, a spiritual or divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them. Applying his principles to man as a member of a community, he assigns practically the same origin and sanctions to ecclesiastical as to See also:civil government. His theory of government forms the basis of the Treatise on Civil Government by See also:Locke, although Locke See also:developed the theory in a way that Hooker would not have sanctioned. The -. force and justification of government Hooker derives from public approbation, either given directly by the parties immediately concerned, or indirectly through See also:inheritance from their ancestors. Sith men," he says, " naturally have no full and perfect See also:power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof we are See also:part See also:bath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after, by the like universal agreement." His theory as he stated it is in various of its aspects and applications liable to objection; but taken as a whole it is the first philosophical statement of the principles which, though disregarded in the succeeding age, have since regulated See also:political progress in England writings indicate that he possessed a cheerful and healthy disposition, and that he was capable of discovering enjoyment in everyday pleasures, and of appreciating human life and character in a wide variety of aspects. He seems to have had a special delight in outward nature—as he expressed it, he loved " to see God's blessing spring out of his mother earth "; and he spent much of his spare time in visiting his parishioners, his deference towards them, if excessive, being yet mingled with a See also:grave dignity which rendered unwarrantable liberties impossible. As a preacher, though singularly devoid of the qualities which win the See also:applause of the multitude, he always excited the interest of the more intelligent, the breadth and finely balanced See also:wisdom of his thoughts and the See also:fascination of his composition greatly modifying the impression produced by his weak voice and ineffective manner. Partly, doubtless, on account of his dimsightedness, he never removed his See also:eye from his See also:manuscript, and, according to See also:Fuller, " he may be said to have made good See also:music with his See also:fiddle and stick alone, having neither See also:pronunciation nor gesture to See also:grace his matter." To accede without explanation to the claim put forth for the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, that it marks an See also:epoch in English See also:prose literature and English thought, would both be to do some injustice to writers previous to him, and, if not to overestimate his influence, to misinterpret its character. By no means can his excursions in English prose be regarded as chiefly those of a See also:pioneer; and not only is his intellectual position inferior to that of See also:Shakespeare, See also:Spenser and See also:Bacon,' who alone can be properly reckoned as the See also:master See also:spirits of the age, but in reality what effect he may have had upon the thought of his contemporaries was soon disregarded and swept out of sight in the hand-to-hand struggle with See also:Puritanism, and his influence, so far from being immediate and confined to one particular era, has since the reaction against Puritan-ism been slowly and imperceptibly permeating and colouring English thought. His work is, however, the earliest in English prose with enough of the preserving See also:salt of excellence to adapt it to the mental See also:palate of modern readers.

Attempts more elaborate than those of the old chroniclers had been made two centuries previously to employ English prose both for narrative and for discussion; and, a few years before him, See also:

Roger See also:Ascham, See also:Sir Thomas More, See also:Latimer, Sir See also:Philip See also:Sidney, the compilers of the See also:prayer book, and various translators of the See also:Bible, had in widely different departments of literature brought to See also:light many samples of the See also:rich See also:wealth of expression that was latent in the See also:language; but Hooker's is the first independent work in English prose of notable power and See also:genius, and the vigour and grasp of its thought are not more remarkable than the felicity of its literary See also:style. Its more usual and obvious excellences are clearness of expression, notwithstanding occasionally complicated methods; great aptness and conciseness in the formation of individual clauses, and such a fine sense of proportion and See also:rhythm in their arrangement as almost conceals the difficulties of syntax by which he was hampered; finished simplicity, notwithstanding a stateliness too See also:uniform and unbroken; a See also:nice discrimination in the choice of words and phrases, so as both to portray the exact shade of his meaning, and to See also:express each of his thoughts with that degree of emphasis appropriate to its place in his composition. In regard to qualities more See also:relating to the matter than the manner we may See also:note the subtle and partly hidden humour; the strong See also:enthusiasm underlying that seemingly See also:calm and passionless exposition of principles which continually led him away from the minutiae of temporary disputes, and has earned for him the somewhat misleading epithet of " judicious;" the solidity of learning, not ostentatiously displayed, but indicated in the character and variety of his illustrations and his comprehensive mastery of all that relates to his subject; the breadth of his conceptions, and the sweep and ease of his movements in the highest regions of thought; the fine poetical descriptions occasionally introduced, in which his eloquence attains a grave, rich and massive harmony that compares not unfavourably with the finest prose of See also:Milton. His manner is, of course, defective in the flexibility and variety characteristic of the best See also:models of English prose literature after the language had been enriched and perfected by long use, and his sentences, constructed too much according to Latin usages, are often tautological and too protracted into long concatenations of clauses; but if, when regarded superficially, his style presents in some respects a stiff and antiquated aspect, it yet possesses an original and innate See also:charm that has retained its freshness after the See also:lapse of nearly three centuries. The See also:direct interest in the Ecclesiastical Polity is now philosophical and political rather than theological, for what theological importance it possessed was rather in regard to the spirit and method In which See also:theology should he discussed than in regard to the decision of strictly theological points. Hooker bases his reasoning on principles which i If Bacon was the author of The See also:Christian Paradoxes, his philosophical standpoint in reference to See also:religion was not only less advanced than that of Hooker, but in a sense directly opposed to it. and gradually modified its constitution. One of the corollaries of his principles is his theory of the relation of church and See also:state, according to which, with the qualifications implied in his theory of government, he asserts the royal supremacy in matters of religion, and identifies the church and See also:commonwealth as but different aspects of the same government.

End of Article: HOOKER, RICHARD (1553-1600)

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