OCCLEVE
197
OCCULT
is the perverse human will and is intrinsic to the hu-
man composite. The occasion is something extrinsic
and, given the freedom of the will, cannot, properly
speaking, stand in causal relation to the act or vicious
habit which we call sin. There can be no doubt that
in general the same obligation which binds us to re-
frain from sin requires us to shun its occasion. Qui
tenetur ad finem, tenetur ad media (he who is bound
to reach a certain end is bound to employ the means
to attain it). Theologians distinguish between the
proximate and the remote occasion. They are not
altogether at one as to the precise value to be attrib-
uted to the terms. De Lugo defines proximate occa-
sion (DepoEnit.,disp. 14, n. 149) as one in which men of
like calibre for the most part, fall into mortal sin, or one
in which experience points to the same result from the
special weakness of a particular person. The remote
occasion lacks these elements. All theologians are
agreed that there is no obligation to avoid the remote
occasions of sin both because this would, practically
speaking, be impossible and because they do not in-
volve serious danger of sin. As to the proximate oc-
casion, it may be of the sort that is described as
necessary, that is, such as a person cannot abandon
or get rid of. Whether this impossibility be physical
or moral does not matter for the determination of
the principles hereinafter to be laid down. Or it
may be voluntary, that is within the competency of
one to remove. Moralists distinguish between a prox-
imate occasion which is continuous and one which,
whilst it is unquestionably proximate, yet confronts
a person only at intervals. It is certain that one who
is in the presence of a proximate occasion at once vol-
untary and continuous is bound to remove it. A re-
fusal on the part of a penitent to do so would make it
imperative for the confessor to deny absolution. It is
not always necessary for the confessor to await the
actual performance of this duty before giving absolu-
tion; he may be content with a sincere promise, which
is the minimum to be required. Theologians agree
that one is not obliged to shun the proximate but
necessary occasions. Nemo tenelur ad impossibile (no
one is bound to do what is impossible). There is no
question here of freely casting oneself into the danger
of sin. The assumption is that stress of unavoidable
circumstances has imposed this unhappy situation.
All that can then be required is the employment of
such means as will make the peril of sin remote. The
difficulty is to determine when a proximate occasion
is to be regarded as not physically (that is plain
enough) but morally necessary. Much has been
written by theologians in the attempt to find a rule
for the measurement of this moral necessity and a
formula for its expression, but not successfully. It
seems to be quite clear that a proximate occasion may
be deemed necessary when it cannot be given up
without grave scandal or loss of good name or with-
out notable temporal or spiritual damage.
Slater. Moral Theology (New York, 1908) : Ballerini, Opus Theologicum Morale (Prato, 1900); G^NICOT, TheologitE Moralis Insliluliones (Louvain, 1898).
Joseph F. Delant.
Occleve (or Hoccleve), Thomas; little is known of his life beyond what is mentioned in his poems. He was b. about 1368; d. in 1450. The place of his birth and education is unknown. When about nine- teen he became a clerk in the Privy-Seal Office, a posi- tion which he held for at least twenty-four years. It is recorded in the Patent Rolls (1399) that he received a pension of £10 a year. In his poem "La Male R^gle", written in 1406, he confesses to having lived a life of pleasure and even of dissipation, but his mar- riage in 1411 seems to have caused a change in his career, and his poem "De Regimine Principum", written soon afterwards, bears witness to his reform. In 1424 he was granted a pension of £20 a year for life. His name and reputation have come down to us
linked with those of Lydgate; the two poets were fol-
lowers and enthusiastic admirers of Chaucer. It is
most probable that Occleve knew Chaucer personally,
as he has left three pa.ssages of verse about him, and, in
the MS. of the " De Regimine", a portrait of Chaucer
(the only one we possess), which he says he had
painted " to put other men in remembrance of his per-
son". He was a true Chaucerian as far as love and
admiration could make him, but he was unable to im-
itate worthily his master's skill in poetry. Occleve
has left us a body of verse which has its own interest,
but none of which, as poetry, can be placed much
above mediocrity. Nevertheless, there are many
things which give pleasure. There is his devoted love
to Our Lady, which causes some of the poems he wrote
in her honour (especially " The Moder of God") tobe
among his best efforts. There is his admiration of
Chaucer, already spoken of, and there is also sound
morality, and a good deal of "the social sense" in the
matter of his poems. Though he had no humour, he
could tell a story well, and in several poems he enlists
our sympathy by the frank recognition of his weak-
ness both as man and poet.
His work consists of: a long poem, "De Regimine Principum" (the Government of Princes), addressed to Prince Henry, afterwards Henry V; it is written in the seven-line stanza and contains much varied matter, religious, moral, social, and political; two verse stories from the "Gesta Romanorum"; three other poems of some length, largely autobiographical, "La Male Regie", "A Complaint", and "A Dia- logue"; "Ars sciendi mori" (the Art of learning to die) a specimen of his work at its best, most of it in the seven-line stanza, but with an ending in prose; many other poems, chiefly Ballades, and mostly short, with the exception of "Cupid's Letter" and the interesting expostulation with Sir John Oldcastle concerning his heresy, "O Oldcastle, alas what ailed thee To slip into the snare of heresie?". All the above poems are contained in the Early English Text Society's edition of Occleve's works (London, 1892-7).
FuRNiVALL in Diet. Nat. Biog., IX (reissued, London, 1908); Idem in Prefaee to E. Bng. Text Socy. Edition of Works (Lond., 1892-7); Saintsbury in Camb. Hist. ofEng. Literature, II (Cana- bridge, 190S).
K. M. Warren.
Occult Art, Occultista. — Under this general term are included various practices to which special articles of the Encyclopedia are devoted: Animism; Astrol- ogy; Divin.\tion; Fetishism. The present article deals with the form of Occultism known as " Magic". The English word magic is derived through the Latin, Greek, Persian, Ass5'rian from the Sumerian or Tu- ranian word imga or emga ("deep", "profound"), a designation for the Pro to-Chaldean priests or wizards. Magi became a standard term for the later Zoroas- trian, or Persian, priesthood through whom Eastern oc- cult arts were made known to the Greeks; hence fidyot (as also the kindred words iiayiKis, fiayela), a magi- cian or a person endowed with secret knowledge and power like a Persian magus. In a restricted sense magic is understood to be an interference with the usual course of physical nature by apparently inade- quate means (recitation of formularies, gestures, mix- ing of incongruous elements, and other mysterious ac- tions), the knowledge of which is obtained through secret communication with the force underlying the universe (God, the Devil, the soul of the world, etc.); it is the attempt to work miracles not by the power of God, gratuitously communicated to man, but by the use of hidden forces beyond man's control. Its ad- vocates, despairing to move the Deity by supplication, seek the desired result b^' evoking powers ordinarily reserved to the Deity. It is a corruption of religion, not a preliminary stage of it as Rationalists main- tain, and it appears as an accompaniment of decadent rather than of rising civilization. There is nothing
