Rabelais has put the matter more clearly than perhaps
any Italian. We quote him, indeed, unwillingly in these pages. What the
great, baroque Frenchman gives us is a picture of what the Renaissance
would be without form and without beauty. But his description of an
ideal state of things in the Thelemite monastery is decisive as
historical evidence. In speaking of his gentlemen and ladies of the
Order of Free Will, he tells us as follows:
'En leur reigle n'estoit que ceste clause: Fay ce que vouldras. Parce
que gens liberes, bien nayz, bien instruictz, conversans en compaignies
honnestes, ont par nature ung instinct et aguillon qui tousjours les
poulse ... faictz tueux, et retire de vice: lequel ilz nommoyent
honneur.'
This is that same faith in the goodness of human nature which inspired
the men of the second half of the eighteenth century, and helped to
prepare the way for the French Revolution. Among the Italians, too,
each man appeals to this noble instinct within him, and though with
regard to the people as a whole--chiefly in consequence of the national
disasters-- judgements of a more pessimistic sort became prevalent, the
importance of this sense of honour must still be rated highly. If the
boundless development of individuality, stronger than the will of the
individual, be the work of a historical providence, not less so is the
opposing force which then manifested itself in Italy.
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