Mary Astell on Moderation: The Case of Occasional Conformity

ABSTRACT

In 1704, Mary Astell, known by many scholars as the “first English feminist,” published Moderation Truly Stated, her contribution to the national debate over “occasional conformity.” This was the practice of periodic participation in the sacraments of the Church of England—above all, taking communion—in order to become eligible for public office. This practice was defended as an exercise of the virtue of “moderation,” viewed as the opposite of zeal and associated with politeness and reasonableness. In this article I recover Astell’s critique on this new notion of moderation, as well as her own alternative conception of the virtue of moderation as scripture moderation, which she envisioned as zeal and indifference towards the right ends. My aim is threefold. First, to explore the dangers of conceiving of moderation as an “antidote to zeal,” which Astell argued would be detrimental to truth, salvation, and moral progress. Second, to demonstrate that her own conception of moderation as zeal and indifference towards the right ends was a radical subversion of the discourse on moderation at the time. Third, to shed light on the role of the Occasional Conformity debate in the transformation of moderation from a Christian virtue of temperance and control into a “modern” virtue construed as politeness and opposed to zeal, which was to become dominant in eighteenth-century England.

KEYWORDS:

• Mary Astell
• Occasional Conformity debate
• moderation
• zeal
• feminist political thought

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Sophie Smith, Sarah Apetrei, Jeanne Morefield, Sylvana Tomaselli, Andrew Murphy, Elizabeth Frazer, David Leopold, Constantine Vassilou, Rufaida Al Hashmi, Shai Agmon, Elsa Kugelberg and Jan Eijking, as well as audiences at OWIPT, APSA, Newcastle and Cambridge for their thoughtful comments. Thanks, too, to the editors of the special issue, Nick Mithen, Aurelian Craiutu, Alexander Smith, and the anonymous reviewer, for their constructive criticism and advice. I am especially grateful to Teresa Bejan for her invaluable feedback and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ See Hill, First English Feminist.

² Clark, The Later Stuarts, 224.

³ Skjönsberg, Persistence of Party, 5.

⁴ Sirota, “Occasional Conformity Controversy,” 82.

⁵ Skjönsberg, Persistence of Party, 328.

⁶ In a later pamphlet, A Fair Way with the Dissenters and their Patrons (1704), Astell noted that Owen did not include her in the reply to his critics, saying that “he did wisely in over-looking Moderation truly stated, for to have consider’d it would have lost him one half of his Book” (114–15). Hereafter the works by Astell are abbreviated and cited with page or paragraph numbers in the text: A Fair Way with the Dissenters = FW; Moderation Truly Stated = MTS; The Christian Religion = C; Some Reflections upon Marriage = RM; Serious Proposal I & II = SP I, SP II.

⁷ Astell, Political Writings; Bejan, “Mary Astell on Equality, Hierarchy, and Ambition,” 3.

⁸ Shagan, The Rule of Moderation, 7–8.

⁹ Craiutu, Courageous Minds, 27.

¹⁰ Shagan, The Rule of Moderation, 330.

¹¹ Owen, Moderation a Vertue, 9. Hereafter abbreviated as MV and cited with page numbers in the text.

¹² Knights, “Occasional Conformity,” 57.

¹³ Sirota, “Occasional Conformity Controversy,” 97.

¹⁴ Broad, “Astell’s Machiavellian Moment,” 11.

¹⁵ Davenant, Essays upon Peace, 239–64.; Cf. Sirota, “Occasional Conformity Controversy,” 95.

¹⁶ Astell did not idealise members of the national Church: “I do not affirm that the Dissenters and their Patrons are the only Men who want the Vertues of a Patriot; or that all the Friends of the Church are Saints and Heroes, would to GOD they were!” (MTS, 110).

¹⁷ For the former and predominant view, see Zook, “Religious Nonconformity,” 101; Broad, Theory of Virtue, 164; Goldie, “Mary Astell,” 65–85.

¹⁸ Perry, Celebrated Mary Astell, 68.

¹⁹ For a discussion on a clash between Astell and Hickes, see Apetrei, “Astell’s Tory Feminism,” 507–23.

²⁰ In his pamphlet Plain Case, Sherlock wrote, “the Present Power is King De Facto; and if we allow of God’s Providence, he is… ordained and anointed of God, and therefore is King De Jure.” Quoted in Goldie, Tory Political Thought, 86–87.

²¹ See e.g., Astell wrote: “Faction it self… being in its Nature pernicious, and producing more Fatal Mischiefs than Foreign War, Sickness, Famine, or any other Evil the Anger of Heaven brings down upon us: And therefore it ought to be the Concern of every private Man to put as quick an End as possible to what is so destructive to the whole” (MTS, iii).

²² This is also what Daniel Defoe initially argued. Cf. Defoe, An Enquiry.

²³ Astell wrote, “whatever the Pretended Reasons of Revolutions may be, the true Reason is always the Change of hands; that Party which was neglected endeavouring to get into the Saddle” (MTS, 105).

²⁴ For example, Astell wrote: “I would intreat him [my Reader] neither to believe Me or any other Writer on our bare word… but to see with his own Eyes, and to judge according to his own Understanding” (MTS, 2).

²⁵ Interestingly, in The Christian Religion, Astell argued that if she had been born in Africa and had seen a Bible, she would have ended up as a member of the Church of England as well, which was the “most agreeable to God’s word” (cf. C, §54–57).

²⁶ Locke, Toleration and Other Writings, Introduction.

²⁷ We know that Astell read, and was impressed with, Locke’s Essay Concerning the Human Understanding, and that she read his Two Treatises on Government, which she did not think highly of. Locke’s works on toleration were published anonymously.

²⁸ Bejan, Mere Civility, 123.

²⁹ Astell wrote: “To be Moderate in Religion is the same thing as to be Luke-warm, which GOD so much abhors. … To be Moderately Honest is to be honest no longer than ‘tis for our turn. … To be Moderately Sober, is to guard our Temperance so long as Inclination, Company and Example don’t tempt us out of it. … A Moderate Friend is one that will do you no hurt… but he will do you as little good” (MTS, 5).

³⁰ Sarkela, “Moderation, Religion, and Public Discourse,” 62.

³¹ For example, Weil, Political Passions, chap. 6; Smith, “English ‘Feminist’ Writings,” 729; Goldie, “Mary Astell,” 74–76; Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation, 269, 359.

³² Although Astell did seem to think it unjust that women were denied political power: “The course of the world does not often lodge power and authority in women’s hands, though by the use is made of them, when providence has placed them there, one may reasonably conclude, that as it does not show the justice, so neither is it for the interest of men to withhold them” (C, §318); and “a little practice of the world will convince us, that ladies are as grand politicians, and every whit as intriguing as any patriot of the good old cause” (C, §150).

³³ Quoted in Boyle, “Margaret Cavendish,” 527.

³⁴ Cavendish, Sociable Letters, 61.

³⁵ Perry, The Celebrated Mary Astell, esp. chap. 7.

³⁶ See also Astell, FW, 117.

³⁷ Knight, “Occasional Conformity,” 57.

³⁸ Broad, “Astell’s Machiavellian Moment,” 11.

³⁹ Bejan, “Mary Astell on Equality, Hierarchy, and Ambition,” 17.

⁴⁰ Crick, ed., Machiavelli, The Discourses, 23; As Catherine Zuckert puts it in her discussion of Machiavelli on prudence: “Indecision is never good—or even possible. A decision not to take sides or to do nothing is nevertheless a decision that will have consequences.” Zuckert, Machiavelli’s Politics, 95.

⁴¹ See Astell, The Christian Religion, §99, §158, §236, §283; Cf. Bejan, “Mary Astell on Equality, Hierarchy, and Ambition.”

⁴² Broad, Theory of Virtue, 153.

⁴³ I am indebted to the anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

⁴⁴ North, Sophrosyne, 150–51.

⁴⁵ Plato, “Republic,” 430e, in Cooper, Complete Works, 1062.

⁴⁶ North, Sophrosyne, 192.

⁴⁷ Plato, “Laws,” 716c–d, in Cooper, Complete Works, 1402–3.

⁴⁸ North, Sophrosyne, 312.

⁴⁹ Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, I.19.35.

⁵⁰ Ibid, I.19.36.

⁵¹ Konkola, “Meek Imperialists,” 10.

⁵² Baxter, The Practical Works, VIII:6. Quoted in Konkola, “Meek Imperialists,” 10.

⁵³ Ibid, 11.

⁵⁴ Ibid, 7; Dunnington, Christian Virtue Theory, 71.

⁵⁵ Astell, Serious Proposal II, 231.

⁵⁶ Interestingly, among the books at Magdalene College Old Library that were recently discovered by Catherine Sutherland to have been part of Astell’s personal library, there is a book on humility, A Practical Discourse of Humility (1681) by William Allen. In the margins, Astell wrote: “a dejected & sneaking S^pt in Adversity to sign of Humility, but is oftenest seen in those who are puft up w^th Prosperity” (Cambridge, Magdalene College Old Library, B.17.8, p. 5). Those who often seem most humble by outward signs, are in fact the least humble. For more on the Astell book collection, see Sutherland, “Books Owned by Mary Astell.”

⁵⁷ Craiutu, Courageous Minds, 27.

⁵⁸ Cf. Shagan, The Rule of Moderation, 330; Klein, “Politeness,” 874.

⁵⁹ Klein, “Politeness,” 874.

⁶⁰ Ibid.

⁶¹ Sirota, “Occasional Conformity Controversy,” 83.

⁶² Shagan seems to recognise this when he acknowledges that “[o]f course, politeness was often still coercive,” nonetheless, he argues that “While coercion had been understood as an outcome or even a facet of moderation, it was an exception to politeness.” Shagan, The Rule of Moderation, 330.

⁶³ See Apetrei, “Astell’s Tory Feminism.”

⁶⁴ Weil, Political Passions, 142.

⁶⁵ Biographia Britannica, 3713 (my emphasis.)

Additional information

Funding

This research article was generously funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Elisabeth Brandenburg Foundation, Catharine Halkes Fund, Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude te ’s-Gravenhage Fund as well as St Catherine’s College and Oriel College, Oxford.

Notes on contributors

Geertje Bol

Geertje Bol is an FWO postdoctoral research fellow at Ghent University, Belgium. Prior to this, she defended her D.Phil. in Politics at the University of Oxford in September 2022, and obtained an M.Phil. in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews in 2019. Her research sits at the intersection of political theory, intellectual history, and feminist theory, with a special focus on recovering early modern women’s political thought.