Hereditary Evil and the Emperors Bonaparte

The Writings refer to history as one of the "useful sciences" which are "nothing else but means for becoming wise, or for forming one's rational mind" (SE4578). The cultivation of useful sciences such as history, in this broader sense of the term science, may serve to assist with confirming truths and doctrines from the Word. There is even a proper procedure and order for this confirmation, namely that useful sciences may be used to confirm the Word but should not be used as the starting point for arriving at spiritual truth.

Someone may, for instance, see in the zinc spark at human conception a confirmation in natural life or science of the Word's being "the light that lighteth every man" (John 1:9); but someone should not start out from the incidence of such a minute event and therefrom arrive at spiritual truths. 

With history having thus been subordinated to the higher and internal development of the human, let's follow the Church procedure: 

This hellscape is called Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau and is by Antoine-Jean Gros. The corpse-colored toad on the pale horse ended up winning that particular war, but this meatgrinder of a battle involved massive loss of life on both sides without even being decisive. Right, so... let's take a closer look at that corpse-colored toad. Do you see how his skin is approximately the same color as the pile of dead people above whom he almost seems to levitate on a cloud of snow? Yes, the painter clearly intended for you to see Death on that horse... and death generally. This is literally and figuratively 'a day from hell'. 

What you see before you in this painting is the human cost of exalting oneself at the expense of other people; which in Napoléon's case involved the deaths of millions of people. In fairness to Mr. Emperor, France was already massively mobilized and up in arms against its neighbors before he even seized power; so you can at least mitigate the human cost of Napoléon to the extent of acknowledging that bloody warfare was then all the rage. But let us see what the Epistle says about exalting oneself: "For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face" (2 Corinthians 11:20). Does any painting more effectively illustrate this verse? Perhaps. In any case, this grievous glimpse of the consequences when people care only about themselves and their own power and glory makes an excellent classroom globe. 

We read the following about people like Napoléon in True Christian Religion: 

"[Such] a person is unaware that such a crazy, limitless craving lies hidden within him. Yet the truth of this must be apparent to everyone in the case of dictators and kings who meet none of these restraints, bonds or impossibilities. They rush to subdue provinces and kingdoms so far as their success permits and they aspire to unlimited power and glory; even more so, if they extend their dominion to heaven and arrogate to themselves all the Lord's Divine power. These people continually seek to go further" (TCR400).

One would here note that we can have a sane, limitless craving for impulsive and ideational improvement, for perfectibility and knowledge. But we are here talking about its evil twin, and few people illustrate how harmful that inverse can be for its host society better than Napoléon, Emperor of the French. The Napoleonic Wars have generally been acknowledged as a costly setback for France which involved the loss of its demographic advantage and the incalculable human cost of losing a generation of healthy people who might actually have done something with their lives. 

Certainly the corpse-colored toad had an astute grasp of how to set up civil institutions so sagacious that they remain in use to this day; and he was happy to patronize the arts and sciences and otherwise to make a contribution to civilization. But he was still a corpse-colored toad, because no matter how much his better nature may have benefited civilization, he lived for himself and his own power and glory; which resulted in incalculable human suffering. He would probably not have given a toss if he had managed to burn through another million people after returning from Elba for try number two at conquering everything. 

Speaking of try number two, did you know that there were two Emperors of the French in the 19th Century and that they were both members of the Bonaparte family? It sounds rather odd, does it not? It is as though some top secret lab were cloning power-hungry seizers of power and declarers of Imperium. And yet it happened; and its happening just happens to confirm New Church doctrine about hereditary evil. So let's look at Emperor Bonaparte of the French Volume 2 a bit, and then we will have still more context for confirming spiritual truth with a useful science. 

By 'looking at' I do not mean numbing you with unnecessary detail. Emperor Louis-Napoléon had an interesting life well worth looking into. But here I want to draw attention to the extremely power-hungry nature of one who attempts to seize power again and again despite the enormous pains to which someone would have to go and the great odds against succeeding in a world where job openings for Emperor are fairly few and far between.

Let's see! There was the first attempt to seize power at Strasbourg in 1836; the second attempt to seize power at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1840; and then, after a period of pretending to care about being an elected representative he 'finally got 'em' -- that is, the French -- in 1851, which is when all the chatter about democracy went away and there was an Emperor Bonaparte of the French again. As for the first Emperor Bonaparte, mention has already been made of his trying twice to conquer everything; being exiled unsuccessfully to Elba the first time and successfully to St. Helena the second time. This pattern, among others -- like the tendency for seizers of power to come from small, neighboring countries with analogous cultures* -- shows up in the biographies of other exemplars such as Hitler; whose failure to seize power during the Beer Hall Putsch was followed by a successful seizure very similar to that of both Emperor Bonapartes in involving first an electoral and then a dictatorial phase.

*Macedonia, Corsica, and Austria come to mind. So do the Manchus and Mongols in China. 

As should be very clear from the incidence of two Emperor Bonapartes, each with an incredibly unusual hunger and capacity for seizing power, there may not have been a 'top secret lab' pumping out power-hungry people; but there was the next best thing, a family whose hereditary evil involved the transmission from generation to generation of this pooling tendency. As we read in Spiritual Experiences, "the evils of some families may be distinguished from those of others" (SE3547); and one purposefully chose as striking an example of this phenomenon as one could possibly find in the historical record. We have besides the confirmation in another Spiritual Experience that both the desire to dominate others and the tendency to make light of adulteries may run in royal families as surely as a certain color of hair or a tendency towards problems with alcohol may run in your own (SE3548). And while we are on the subject, both Emperor Napoleons committed adultery! 

Now, mention has already been made of the intensely power-hungry nature of one willing to put up with the steaming mound of hassles involved in climbing to the top and, once there, staying on top. One has painted this particular aspect thickly because, after all, we have embarked on this excursion in order to relate the "useful science" of history to New Church doctrine. In this case, the Latin Testament bluntly teaches that evil people often perform more uses for society than good people; because good people are too content with quiet lives and too unwilling to put up with the hassles involved in climbing the pyramid of power, especially at others' expense (DP250). Who, then, is willing? Power-hungry, self-loving people are willing. And that is why God gives so much talent and influence to the wicked in high places: because they show up to do the work, whereas the decent people would rather not put up with the hassles involved; and understandably desire to avoid slimy people and places. 

So! We have seen how the same patterns emerge in multiple members of the Bonaparte family; and how patterns likewise emerge which mark figures like the Napoleons, Hitler, or Alexander out as items of a set. Self-love unchained, the "he goats" of the natural world who conquer one land after another until they stop moving, and all for the sake of personal glory more than anything, aptly represents insane bondage to infernal affections or evils in the will; that previously mentioned "crazy, limitless craving" which the Writings ascribe to such representatives. For doing things for the sake of personal power and glory is the very opposite of charity, and the pattern of such representatives in history thus shows up on God's typewriter of correspondences, the one He used to write the Word, as a "he goat". 

An account given of Alexander by Plutarch gives us some indication of how this "crazy, limitless craving" variously expresses: "Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: "Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?" (Plutarch). One would stress that this is not a healthy, normal reaction to encountering the Many Worlds hypothesis! Not having conquered every nation and people on Earth is not a matter for lamentation, and one feels somewhat troubled by anyone's grasping at once the possibility of galactic empire over two thousand years ago. Speaking of unhealthy, abnormal reactions to the Many Worlds hypothesis, this is what they did to Giordano Bruno when he tragically mentioned exoplanets aloud in the Middle Ages. It gets goats, does other worlds, apparently. 

The Burning of Giordano Bruno by Leonora Carrington