Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/233

Rh VICVIC 213 And because the primitive peoples are unconscious and self-ignorant Homer is represented as being blind. In all parts of history in which he was best versed Vico pursues a stricter and more scientific method, and arrives at safer conclusions. This is the case in Roman history, especially in such portions as related to the history of law. Here he sometimes attains, even in details, to divinations of the truth afterwards confirmed by new documents and later research. The aristocratic origin of Rome, the struggle between the patricians and the plebeians, the laws of the XII. Tables, not, as tradition would have it, imported from Greece (but the natural and spon taneous product of ancient Roman customs), and many other similar theories were discovei ed by Vico, and expounded with his usual originality, though not always without his usual blunders and ex aggerations. Vico may be said to base his considerations on the history of two nations. The greater part of his ideas on poetical wisdom were derived from Greece. Nearly all the rest, more especially the trans ition from poetical to occult wisdom, was derived from Rome. Having once formulated his idea, he made it more general in order to apply it to the history of all nations. From the savage state, through the terror that gives birth to religions, through the crea tion of families by marriage, through burial rites and piety towards the dead, men approach civilization with the aid of poetic wisdom, and pass through three periods, the divine, heroic, and human, in which they have three forms of government, language, literature, jurisprudence, and civilization. The primary government is aristo cratic. Patrician tyranny rouses the populace to revolt, and then democratic equality is established under a republic. Democratic excesses cause the rise of an empire, which, becoming corrupt, de clines into barbarism, and, again emerging from it, retraces the same course. This is the law of cycles, constituting that which is designated by Vico as the &quot;eternal ideal history, or rather course of humanity, invariably followed by all nations.&quot; It must not be held to imply that one nation imitates the course pursued by another, nor that the points of resemblance between them are transmitted by tradition from one to the other, but merely that all are subject to one law, inasmuch as this is based on the human nature common to all alike. Thus, while on the one hand the various cycles traced and retraced by all nations are similar and yet independent, on the other hand, being actually derived from Roman history, they become converted in the Scienza Nuova into a bed of Procrustes, to which the history of all nations has to be fitted by force. And wherever Vico s historical knowledge failed he was led into increased error by this artificial and arbitrary effort. It has been justly observed by many that this continuous cyclical movement entirely excludes the progress of humanity towards a better future. It has been replied that these cycles are similar without being identical, and that, if one might differ from another, the idea of progress was not necessarily excluded by the law of cycles. Vico undoubtedly considered the poetic wisdom of the Middle Ages to be different from that of the Greeks and Romans, and Christianity to be very superior to the pagan religion. But he never investigated the question whether, since there is a law of progress ive evolution in the history of different nations, separately examined, there may not likewise be another law ruling the general history of these nations, every one of which must have represented a new period, as it were, in the history of humanity at large. Therefore, although the Scienza Xuova cannot be said absolutely to deny the law of progress, it must be allowed that Vico not only failed to solve the problem but even shrank from attacking it. He had no followers or admirers even in Naples, where the ideas of Tanucci, Filangieri, Genovcsi, and Galiani prevailed, men who sometimes appear to be more French than Italian. When at last, with the German reaction initiated by Kant against the sense philosophy of the French, an entirely new philosophy arose, and many ideas started by Vico were revived on a more rigorous method, supported by more accurate research and with a wider and firmer grasp of knowledge, the name of the Neapolitan philosopher was forgotten, and no one recognized how much was owed to him. Nevertheless it may be asserted that between the close of the 17th and the early part of the ISth century, when the thought of the world was bent in a totally different direction, Vico was the first to discern and proclaim the course by which, in the present age, historical, moral, and political science was destined to make such great and assured progress. See Cantoni, G. II. Vico, Studli Critici e Cnmparativl (Turin, 1807); Flint, fico (Edinburgh and London, 1884). For editions of Vico s own works, see Opere, ed. Giuseppe Ferrari (Milan, 1834-35, 6 vols.), and Miehelet, (Jiuvres Choisies ile Pico (Paris, 1835, 2 vols.). Maniiani. llosinini, Gioberti, and many other Italian philosophers have treated at length of Vico in their works. The most detailed account of him is Ferrari s essay, &quot;La Mente de Vico,&quot; prefacing his edition of the Ope re. (P. V.) VICTOR L, ST, bishop of Rome from about 190 to 202, succeeded Eleutherus and was followed by Zephyrinus. His name is chiefly associated with a display of intolerance towards the bishops of Asia Minor for the view they took in the Quartodeciman controversy (see EASTKR ; also POPE- DOM, vol. xix. p. 489) ; he also excommunicated Theodotus of Byzantium on account of his doctrine as to the Person of Christ (see MONAKCHIANISM). VICTOR II., one of the series of German popes and the successor of Leo IX., was consecrated in St Peter s, Rome, on 13th April 1055. His father was a Swabian baron, Count Hartwig von Calw, and his own baptismal name was Gebhard. At the instance of Gebhard, bishop of Ratisbon, uncle of the emperor Henry III., he had been appointed while still a young man to the see of Eichstiidt ; in this position his great talents soon enabled him to render important services to Henry, whose chief adviser he ultimately became. His nomination to the papacy by Henry at Mainz, in September 1054, was made at the instance of a Roman deputation headed by Hildebrand, whose policy doubtless was to detach from the imperial interest one of its ablest supporters. In June 1055 Victor met the emperor at Florence, and held a council, which anew condemned clerical marriages, simony, and the aliena tion of the estates of the church. In the following year he was summoned to Germany to the side of the emperor, and was with him when he died at Botfekl in the Harz on 5th October 1056. As guardian of Henry s infant son, and adviser of the empress Agnes, Victor now wielded enormous power, which he began to use with much tact for the maintenance of peace throughout the empire and for strengthening the papacy against the aggressions of the barons. He died shortly after his return to Italy, at Arezzo, on 28th July 1057. His successor was Stephen IX. (Frederick of Lorraine). VICTOR III., pope from 24th May 1086 to 16th Sep tember 1087, was the successor of Pope Gregory VII. Son of Landolfo V., prince of Benevento, he was born in 1027 ; in his thirtieth year he entered the cloister at Monte Cassino, changing his name of Dauferius into De- siderius. He soon became abbot of the monastery, and in 1059 Nicolas II. raised him to the carclinalate. He rendered many important services to Gregory VII., who accordingly on his deathbed indicated him to the cardinals of south Italy as his worthiest successor. He was elected on 24th May 1086, but showed genuine reluctance to accept the embarrassing honour thus thrust upon him, and after his tardy consecration, which did not take place till 9th May 1087, he withdrew at once to Monte Cassino. The countess Matilda soon afterwards induced him to re turn to Rome ; but, owing to the presence of the antipope Clement III. (Guibert of Ravenna), who had powerful partisans, his stay there was short. In August he held at Benevento a synod of some importance, at which Clement III. was excommunicated, lay-investiture forbidden, and a kind of crusade proclaimed against the Saracens in Africa. During the synod Victor fell ill, and betook himself to Monte Cassino, where he died on 16th September 1087. His successor was Urban II. VICTOR IV. Two antipopes have claimed this name : (1) Cardinal Gregorio Conti, who was chosen by a party in succession to the antipope Anacletus II. in 1138, but through the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux was induced two months afterwards to make his submission to Innocent II.; and (2) Cardinal Octavianus, the Ghibelline antipope, elected in 1159, and countenanced by the emperor Freder ick Barbarossa. He died at Lucca on 20th April 1164. VICTOR, CLAUDE PERRIN (1764-1841), duke of Belluno, marshal of France, was born at La Marche (Vosges) on 7th December 1764. In 1781 he entered the army as a common soldier, and after ten years service he received his discharge and settled at Valence. Soon afterwards lie joined the local volunteers and in less than a year had risen to the command of a battalion. He greatly distin guished himself on the Italian frontier, and for hi;s bravery