Introduction

In Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Richard Hooker establishes man's relationship to Divine law by describing in the first book man's complex position within the wide sphere of creation.1 Man, he argues, is a middling creature, positioned somewhat beneath the angels, occupants of the celestial sphere, and yet above all other "creatures of this inferior world" (67). Distinguished by his potential to "grow by degrees" toward knowledge of God (68), as well as his ability to reach "higher than unto sensible things" (69), man occupies a relatively privileged position within the hierarchy of living beings. He is, as it were, defined by the heights to which he might ascend. And yet if man enjoys a preordained place within the divinely created order, his position is also contingent, possibly even precarious, in Hooker's eyes precisely because the knowledge that names his distinction from other creatures exists at birth only potentially: it is a quality that is "somewhat in possibility" (66).2 Indeed, in addition to this potential for knowledge, it is man's unique ability to "swerve" from the law of God that expresses his difference from other "created thing[s]" (59).3 If angels were at one time inclined to "avert their conceit from God" (65), they have since arrived at a state of perfection that precludes "the possibility of falling" (65).KeywordsSexed BodyEcological ThoughtPalate CleanserWide SphereNonhuman ActantsThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.