Libido sciendi and libido dominandi

Pascal, Pensées (458): "’All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life; libido sentiendi, libido sciendi, libido dominandi.’ Wretched is the cursed land which these three rivers of fire enflame rather than water!”

Differences between the Romance (the beta recension, as presented in the Stoneman edition) and Historia preliis (J1 recension, derived from the delta recension of the Romance) highlight one of the core tensions of the story of Alexander -- that created by his unbalanced desires for knowledge and for power, the desires that Pascal (in his gloss of 1 John 2.16) calls libido sciendi and libido dominandi.  In the histories, the character of Alexander is driven variously by his curiosity and by his imperialism, so he is at once or alternately or successively a warrior and a seeker.  (And the texts make clear that Alexander is not the only human grappling with these desires.)

The Romance starts with a paragraph introducing Alexander as “the best and most noble of men,” and immediately highlighting the core tension: “When he made war against a people, the time he spent in his campaigns was not sufficient for those who wished to research the affairs of the cities.” Conquest and knowledge are dual and not altogether reconciled desires. The more impatiently Alexander moves to continue his conquests, this odd note suggests, the less time there is for research, for the satisfaction of the thirst for knowledge. 

In the second paragraph, our attention is directed away from Alexander and toward his Egyptian father: “This Nectanebo was skilled in the art of magic, and by its use overcame all peoples and thus lived in peace.”  Here again, knowledge is subordinate to conquest. Everything is at the service of the libido dominandi.

By contrast, the Historia preliis starts with no mention of Alexander but goes directly to Egypt: “The wisest Egyptians, who knew the measurement of the earth and mastered the waves of the sea and recognized the order of heavenly objects (that is, computed the course of the stars), handed down this knowledge to the whole world through the depth of their learning and through the magic arts.”  Knowledge is suddenly supreme. In this text, the signal virtue of the Egyptians is not that they use their magic to conquer the world, but rather to educate it.

In both versions, Alexander as an impetuous youth rejects the subjugation of violent instincts to the quest for knowledge. While his father is gazing at the stars, trying to explain their significance to the boy, Alexander pushes him fatally into a ditch, and says, “If you understand earthly matters, why did you wish to know also secrets of the stars?” (Historia, I.14, and almost verbatim in the equivalent section of the Romance.)

Although the timing is not altogether clear, we can assume that Alexander’s youthful and brutal dismissal of the quest for knowledge precedes Aristotle's influence upon him.  There are several versions of Aristotle’s teachings in the versions of Alexander’s life, but in many instances Aristotle serves to remind Alexander about the importance of the search for knowledge.  He plays this role as an advisor and correspondent, and also as an internalized voice, as a point of reference when Alexander is attempting to restrain his own most violent lusts.

There is much more to be said about Alexander’s competing thirsts. The point here is simply that the tension becomes obvious even in the very first sentences of the texts, highlighted by subtle variations between the texts—in this instance, the Romance and the Historia.  So we will leave it there for now, pausing only to note the irony that, long after murdering his father because of his father’s interest in astronomy, Alexander (purportedly) writes to Aristotle that “in my earlier letter I informed you about the eclipse of the sun and the moon, about the arrangement of the stars and about the indications of the weather.” (Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem de Mirabilibus Indiae.)