NOTE E RASSEGNE THE VOICE OF CONSCIENCE TN

NOTE E RASSEGNE
T H E V O I C E OF CONSCIENCE TN ALESSANDRO
MANZONI AND S O M E OF HIS P R E D E C E S S O R S
In the late nineteenth century, John Henry Cardinal Newman, in his A
Grammar of Assent, published in 1870, wrote that conscience vaguely
reaches forward to something beyond itself and finally discerns a higher
sanction for its decisions; hence: "We are accustomed to speak of
conscience as a voice, a term which we should never think of applying
to the sense of the beautiful: and moreover a voice, imperative and
constraining, like no other dictate in the whole of our experience [...]."
In the Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of 1719, Daniel
Defoe says that Crusoe's conscience reproached him with the contempt
of advice and the breach of his duty to God and his father. Later, he
asked why God had isolated him on an island, but his conscience
checked that inquiry as though he had blasphemed, and "methought it
spoke to me like a voice."
It is, however, Jean-Jacques Rousseau who describes the voice: "La
conscience est la voix de l'âme, les passions sont la voix du corps. Estil étonnant que souvent ces deux langages se contredisent? et alors
lequel faut-il écouter?"; unlike reason, the conscience never deceives
us. Shortly afterwards, "Quand vous voudrez écouter votre conscience,
mille vains obstacles disparaîtront à sa voix" (p. 196); "et la voix de la
conscience qui dépose pour elle-même" (p. 160). When we are freed
from the illusions of the body and the senses and contemplate the
Supreme Being and its eternal truths and are occupied in comparing
what we have done with what we ought to have done, "c'est alors que
la voix de la conscience reprendra sa force et son empire" (p. 149).
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In his edition of Voltaire's La philosophie de l ' h i s t o i r e , J. H.
Brumfitt points out that, according to Voltaire, God has implanted in
men a consciousness of right and wrong and that this "voice of
conscience is universal and instinctive and is not caused by, even
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though il may have been impartially modified by, social environment."
When asked by the sceptical Birton how God has revealed himself to
man, the Anglican divine Dr. Freind replies "par la voix de votre
conscience." As Brumfitt indicates, one of the aims of the investigation
of customs in La Philosophie de l'histoire is to show that this voice of
conscience has been heard by people in all ages and that human ideas
of morality have never changed fundamentally.
Finally, before coming to Manzoni, some ironical quotations from
Byron and a reference to Jacobi. According to Byron: "A quiet
conscience makes one so serene!" and: "But at sixteen the conscience
rarely gnaws / So much as when we call our old debts in / At sixty
years, and draw the accompts of evil, / And find a deuced balance with
the devil." And " — even Conscience, loo, has a tough job / To make
us understand each good old maxim, / So good — I wonder Castlereagh
don't tax 'em." Bianca Magnino says of Jacobi: "L'antitesi non si
spezza mai dentro e fuori la vita dell'uomo, ma quanto più l'uomo ne
ha coscienza, tanto più avverte l'esigenza di un Essere superiore perfetto
ed assoluto, che possa compensare, come elemento positivo, la sua
negatività attuale."
T h e voice of the conscience is not mentioned by Manzoni before
Osservazioni sulla morale c a t t o l i c a , but there, naturally enough in view
of the subject, it occurs several times. He asks: "Ma la voce della
coscienza, domanderemo, è ella certa, perpetua, porta ella in
conseguenza di tutte le azioni utili al pubblico un piacere infallibilmente
superiore a lutti i mali che da esse possono venire ai loro autori, e una
pena per tutte le azioni dannose superiore ai vantaggi?" The guilty
person "ode nella coscienza quella voce terribile" (p. 3 3 8 ) which tells
him that he is no longer innocent and that other still more terrible voice
which says "non potrai esserlo più." The people, however, who say to
themselves that virtue "è un nome vano" are not really persuaded of
this; if an internal authoritative voice announces to them that they can
reconquer it, they would believe in its reality or, rather, would confess
that they had always believed it. This is done by religion in whoever
wishes to hear it: religion speaks in the name of a God who has
promised to cast behind his shoulders the iniquities of the repentant
person; it promises forgiveness and discounts the price of sin. Earlier,
Manzoni says that we hear within ourselves, two voices, that placed
there by God and that introduced by sin. Since man does not hear a
distinct answer but the confused sound of a gloomy contest, the Church
confirms the morality of the law which makes it conform to an upright
heart and to reason; the voice of the Gospel "suona per la bocca dei
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8
9
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vescovi e dei preti" (p. 3 2 3 ) .
The characters in Manzoni's tragedies are rent with conflicts, many
of which are internal, but references to the voice of conscience are
missing. The same is true of I promessi sposi. As Ezio Raimondi
expressed it: "D'altro canto, lo spazio interiore del romanzo è popolato
di voci, di suoni, di paure, di fantasmi, di 'guazzabugli,' soprattutto al
livello dell'esperienza incolta e mediocre degli antieroi e delle scelte che
essi sono chiamati a fare." The only reference to conscience occurs in
the dialogue between Fra Cristoforo and Don Rodrigo. The monk refers,
in his request for Don Rodrigo to rectify the misdeed, to conscience and
honour. Don Rodrigo replies: "Lei mi parlerà della mia coscienza,
quando verrò a confessarmi da lei. In quanto al mio onore, ha da sapere
che il custode ne sono io, e io solo; e che chiunque ardisce entrare a
parte con me di questa cura, lo riguardo come il temerario che
l'offende." Don Rodrigo does not understand the independence of
conscience and associates it with honour, a social question which, in
that society, he controls. Manzoni depicts a society of the early
seventeenth century, but his characters are swayed by religious feelings
and suffer internal conflicts.
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12
Among other prominent historical novelists only Cesare Cantù
speaks of the voice of conscience. In Margherita Pusterla, of 1838, he
says of Luchino Visconti: "Né la coscienza taceva in lui; ma ne
soffocava ed illudeva la voce con pratiche devote; recitava ogni dì ed
ascoltava l'uffizio della Madonna." Alpinolo:
Allora poi che gli veniva un bel destro di scannare Luchino e torse
porre in salvo se stesso, quello che prima gii era parsa una giusta
vendetta, anzi un fatto glorioso, gli si presentava come un delitto:
spingevasi innanzi, poi si ritraeva sgomentato, perché la coscienza con
voce imperiosa gli diceva. 'No'.
13
In a similar situation, when Renzo is contemplating shooting Don
Rodrigo, he remembers Lucia, the last memories of his parents, God,
the Madonna and Saints, and thinks of the consolation he had often felt
of being without crimes and the horror he had often felt at the account
of a homicide. Manzoni relates the question to Renzo's own life.
S. BERNARD CHANDLER
University of Toronto,
Toronto, Ontario
132
NOTES
1
Quoted in George Brantl (ed.), Great Religions of Modern Man. Catholicism
(New York: George Braziller, 1 9 6 2 ) , p. 3 4 .
2
Collected
Works
of Daniel
Defoe.
Including
Robinson
Crusoe
and
A
Journal
of the Plague Year (New York: Greystone Press, n. d.), pp. 6 and 5 8 .
3
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Religious Writings, ed. Ronald Grimsley (Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1970),
p.
153,
in
Profession
de foi du
vicaire savoyard of
1762.
4
Voltaire, La Philosophie de l'histoire. 2nd edition revised. Ed. J. H. Brumfitt
(Geneve: Institut et Musée Voltaire and Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1969). p. 3 1 .
5
Voltaire. Romans et Contes (Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères, 1 9 6 0 ) . p. 5 4 3 .
6
Ibid.,
7
The
pp. 5 3 - 4 .
Poetical
Works
of Lord
Byron
(London:
Oxford
University
Press,
Humphrey Milford. 1 9 3 6 ) , m Don Juan. Canto I. Verse L X X X 1 I I . p. 6 3 5 . Verse
C L X V I Ï , and Canto II, Verse C C I I I . p. 6 7 2 .
8
Bianca
Magnino, Romanticismo e cristianesimo,
storica (Brescia: Morcelliana,
9
Osservazioni
sulla
morale
1962), p.
cattolica
I. Struttura e f o r m a z i o n e
161.
(J819),
in
Tutte
le
opere
di
Alessandro
Manzoni. Volume III, Opere morali e filosofiche, a cura di Fausto Ghisalberti
(Milano: Mondadori, 1 9 6 3 ) , p. 2 9 7 .
10
Ezio Raimondi, "Manzoni e il romanticismo." Il Romanticismo. Atti del Sesto
Congresso dell'AISLLI, a cura di V. Branca e T. Kardos (Budapest: Akadémiai
Kiadó. 1 9 6 5 ) , p. 190.
11
Tutte le opere di Alessandro Manzoni, a cura di Alberto Chiari e Fausto
Ghisalberti, Volume II. T o m o I, I promessi sposi. Testo definitivo del 1840. III
edizione (Milano: Mondadori. 1 9 6 3 ) , p. 8 8 .
12
Jacques
Goudet.
Catholicisme
et
poesie
dans
le
roman
"I
Promessi
Sposi"
(Lyon: Éditions L'Hermes. 1 9 6 1 ) . p. 142. note 3 9 , refers to Manzoni elsewhere
than in I Promessi Sposi: "Manzoni a un certain gout pour ces débats intérieurs
où les tendances Je l'âme prennent la forme de diverses voix qui se répondent
et qui sont soit la voix de la conscience, soit celle de la Loi, soit celle du péché,
soit des prémonitions. [...] Et certaines de ces voix se trompent et d'autres sont
véridiques."
Cesare Cantù, Margherita Pusterla (Milano: Rizzoli, Β . U. R., 1965), pp. 2 9
and 3 5 2 .
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133