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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3596.txt b/3596.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1685795 --- /dev/null +++ b/3596.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2433 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 16 +by Michel de Montaigne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 16 + +Author: Michel de Montaigne + +Release Date: September 1, 2006 [EBook #3596] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 16 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 16. + +VI. Of Coaches. +VII. Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. +VIII. Of the Art of Conference. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OF COACHES + +It is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they write of causes, +not only make use of those they think to be the true causes, but also of +those they believe not to be so, provided they have in them some beauty +and invention: they speak true and usefully enough, if it be ingeniously. +We cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and therefore crowd a +great many together, to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them: + + "Namque unam dicere causam + Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tamen sit." + + [Lucretius, vi. 704.--The sense is in the preceding passage.] + +Do you ask me, whence comes the custom of blessing those who sneeze? +We break wind three several ways; that which sallies from below is too +filthy; that which breaks out from the mouth carries with it some +reproach of gluttony; the third is sneezing, which, because it proceeds +from the head and is without offence, we give it this civil reception: do +not laugh at this distinction; they say 'tis Aristotle's. + +I think I have seen in Plutarch' (who of all the authors I know, is he +who has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with knowledge), his +giving as a reason for the, rising of the stomach in those who are at +sea, that it is occasioned by fear; having first found out some reason by +which he proves that fear may produce such an effect. I, who am very +subject to it, know well that this cause concerns not me; and I know it, +not by argument, but by necessary experience. Without instancing what +has been told me, that the same thing often happens in beasts, especially +hogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger; and what an acquaintance +of mine told me of himself, that though very subject to it, the +disposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him, being very +afraid in a violent storm, as it happened to that ancient: + + "Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;" + + ["I was too ill to think of danger." (Or the reverse:) + "I was too frightened to be ill."--Seneca, Ep., 53. 2] + +I was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and I +have had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death be +one), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment. Fear springs sometimes +as much from want of judgment as from want of courage. All the dangers I +have been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, sound, and +entire sight; and, indeed, a man must have courage to fear. It formerly +served me better than other help, so to order and regulate my retreat, +that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless without affright and +astonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupefied. +Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, not only +steady and temperate, but moreover lofty. Let us make a relation of that +which Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in arms: "I found him," +says he, "after the rout of our army, him and Lachez, last among those +who fled, and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I was +mounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as he had fought. I took +notice, in the first place, how much judgment and resolution he showed, +in comparison of Lachez, and then the bravery of his march, nothing +different from his ordinary gait; his sight firm and regular, considering +and judging what passed about him, looking one while upon those, and then +upon others, friends and enemies, after such a manner as encouraged +those, and signified to the others that he would sell his life dear to +any one who should attempt to take it from him, and so they came off; for +people are not willing to attack such kind of men, but pursue those they +see are in a fright." That is the testimony of this great captain, which +teaches us, what we every day experience, that nothing so much throws us +into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness of getting ourselves clear of +them: + + "Quo timoris minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est." + + ["When there is least fear, there is for the most part least + danger."--Livy, xxii. 5.] + +Our people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death, when +they would express that he thinks of it and foresees it: foresight is +equally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or ill. To consider +and judge of danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being astounded. +I do not find myself strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity +of this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever: if I +was once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never rise again very +sound. Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never +set her upright again: she retastes and researches herself too +profoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never let the +wound she had received heal and cicatrise. It has been well for me that +no sickness has yet discomposed her: at every charge made upon me, I +preserve my utmost opposition and defence; by which means the first that +should rout me would keep me from ever rallying again. I have no +after-game to play: on which side soever the inundation breaks my banks, +I lie open, and am drowned without remedy. Epicurus says, that a wise +man can never become a fool; I have an opinion reverse to this sentence, +which is, that he who has once been a very fool, will never after be very +wise. God grants me cold according to my cloth, and passions +proportionable to the means I have to withstand them: nature having laid +me open on the one side, has covered me on the other; having disarmed me +of strength, she has armed me with insensibility and an apprehension that +is regular, or, if you will, dull. + +I cannot now long endure (and when I was young could much less) either +coach, litter, or boat, and hate all other riding but on horseback, both +in town and country. But I can bear a litter worse than a coach; and, by +the same reason, a rough agitation upon the water, whence fear is +produced, better than the motions of a calm. At the little jerks of +oars, stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I know not how, both my +head and my stomach disordered; neither-can I endure to sit upon a +tottering chair. When the sail or the current carries us equally, or +that we are towed, the equal agitation does not disturb me at all; 'tis +an interrupted motion that offends me, and most of all when most slow: I +cannot otherwise express it. The physicians have ordered me to squeeze +and gird myself about the bottom of the belly with a napkin to remedy +this evil; which however I have not tried, being accustomed to wrestle +with my own defects, and overcome them myself. + +Would my memory serve me, I should not think my time ill spent in setting +down here the infinite variety that history presents us of the use of +chariots in the service of war: various, according to the nations and +according to the age; in my opinion, of great necessity and effect; so +that it is a wonder that we have lost all knowledge of them. I will only +say this, that very lately, in our fathers' time, the Hungarians made +very advantageous use of them against the Turks; having in every one of +them a targetter and a musketeer, and a number of harquebuses piled ready +and loaded, and all covered with a pavesade like a galliot--[Canvas +spread along the side of a ship of war, in action to screen the movements +of those on board.]--They formed the front of their battle with three +thousand such coaches, and after the cannon had played, made them all +pour in their shot upon the enemy, who had to swallow that volley before +they tasted of the rest, which was no little advance; and that done, +these chariots charged into their squadrons to break them and open a way +for the rest; besides the use they might make of them to flank the +soldiers in a place of danger when marching to the field, or to cover a +post, and fortify it in haste. In my time, a gentleman on one of our +frontiers, unwieldy of body, and finding no horse able to carry his +weight, having a quarrel, rode through the country in a chariot of this +fashion, and found great convenience in it. But let us leave these +chariots of war. + +As if their effeminacy--[Which Cotton translates: "as if the +insignificancy of coaches." ]--had not been sufficiently known by better +proofs, the last kings of our first race travelled in a chariot drawn by +four oxen. Marc Antony was the first at Rome who caused himself to be +drawn in a coach by lions, and a singing wench with him. + + [Cytheris, the Roman courtezan.--Plutarch's Life of Antony, c. 3. + This, was the same person who is introduced by Gallus under the name + of Lycoris. Gallus doubtless knew her personally.] + +Heliogabalus did since as much, calling himself Cybele, the mother of the +gods; and also drawn by tigers, taking upon him the person of the god +Bacchus; he also sometimes harnessed two stags to his coach, another time +four dogs, and another four naked wenches, causing himself to be drawn by +them in pomp, stark naked too. The Emperor Firmus caused his chariot to +be drawn by ostriches of a prodigious size, so that it seemed rather to +fly than roll. + +The strangeness of these inventions puts this other fancy in my head: +that it is a kind of pusillanimity in monarchs, and a testimony that they +do not sufficiently understand themselves what they are, when they study +to make themselves honoured and to appear great by excessive expense: it +were indeed excusable in a foreign country, but amongst their own +subjects, where they are in sovereign command, and may do what they +please, it derogates from their dignity the most supreme degree of honour +to which they can arrive: just as, methinks, it is superfluous in a +private gentleman to go finely dressed at home; his house, his +attendants, and his kitchen sufficiently answer for him. The advice that +Isocrates gives his king seems to be grounded upon reason: that he should +be splendid in plate and furniture; forasmuch as it is an expense of +duration that devolves on his successors; and that he should avoid all +magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten. I loved to go fine +when I was a younger brother, for want of other ornament; and it became +me well: there are some upon whom their rich clothes weep: We have +strange stories of the frugality of our kings about their own persons and +in their gifts: kings who were great in reputation, valour, and fortune. +Demosthenes vehemently opposes the law of his city that assigned the +public money for the pomp of their public plays and festivals: he would +that their greatness should be seen in numbers of ships well equipped, +and good armies well provided for; and there is good reason to condemn +Theophrastus, who, in his Book on Riches, establishes a contrary opinion, +and maintains that sort of expense to be the true fruit of abundance. +They are delights, says Aristotle, that a only please the baser sort of +the people, and that vanish from the memory as soon as the people are +sated with them, and for which no serious and judicious man can have any +esteem. This money would, in my opinion, be much more royally, as more +profitably, justly, and durably, laid out in ports, havens, walls, and +fortifications; in sumptuous buildings, churches, hospitals, colleges, +the reforming of streets and highways: wherein Pope Gregory XIII. will +leave a laudable memory to future times: and wherein our Queen Catherine +would to long posterity manifest her natural liberality and munificence, +did her means supply her affection. Fortune has done me a great despite +in interrupting the noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great city, +and depriving me of the hope of seeing it finished before I die. + +Moreover, it seems to subjects, who are spectators of these triumphs, +that their own riches are exposed before them, and that they are +entertained at their own expense: for the people are apt to presume of +kings, as we do of our servants, that they are to take care to provide us +all things necessary in abundance, but not touch it themselves; and +therefore the Emperor Galba, being pleased with a musician who played to +him at supper, called for his money-box, and gave him a handful of crowns +that he took out of it, with these words: "This is not the public money, +but my own." Yet it so falls out that the people, for the most part, +have reason on their side, and that the princes feed their eyes with what +they have need of to fill their bellies. + +Liberality itself is not in its true lustre in a sovereign hand: private +men have therein the most right; for, to take it exactly, a king has +nothing properly his own; he owes himself to others: authority is not +given in favour of the magistrate, but of the people; a superior is never +made so for his own profit, but for the profit of the inferior, and a +physician for the sick person, and not for himself: all magistracy, as +well as all art, has its end out of itself wherefore the tutors of young +princes, who make it their business to imprint in them this virtue of +liberality, and preach to them to deny nothing and to think nothing so +well spent as what they give (a doctrine that I have known in great +credit in my time), either have more particular regard to their own +profit than to that of their master, or ill understand to whom they +speak. It is too easy a thing to inculcate liberality on him who has as +much as he will to practise it with at the expense of others; and, the +estimate not being proportioned to the measure of the gift but to the +measure of the means of him who gives it, it comes to nothing in so +mighty hands; they find themselves prodigal before they can be reputed +liberal. And it is but a little recommendation, in comparison with other +royal virtues: and the only one, as the tyrant Dionysius said, that suits +well with tyranny itself. I should rather teach him this verse of the +ancient labourer: + + ["That whoever will have a good crop must sow with his hand, and not + pour out of the sack."--Plutarch, Apothegms, Whether the Ancients + were more excellent in Arms than in Learning.] + +he must scatter it abroad, and not lay it on a heap in one place: and +that, seeing he is to give, or, to say better, to pay and restore to so +many people according as they have deserved, he ought to be a loyal and +discreet disposer. If the liberality of a prince be without measure or +discretion, I had rather he were covetous. + +Royal virtue seems most to consist in justice; and of all the parts of +justice that best denotes a king which accompanies liberality, for this +they have particularly reserved to be performed by themselves, whereas +all other sorts of justice they remit to the administration of others. +An immoderate bounty is a very weak means to acquire for them good will; +it checks more people than it allures: + + "Quo in plures usus sis, minus in multos uti possis.... + Quid autem est stultius, quam, quod libenter facias, + curare ut id diutius facere non possis;" + + ["By how much more you use it to many, by so much less will you be + in a capacity to use it to many more. And what greater folly can + there be than to order it so that what you would willingly do, you + cannot do longer."--Cicero, De Offic., ii. 15.] + +and if it be conferred without due respect of merit, it puts him out of +countenance who receives it, and is received ungraciously. Tyrants have +been sacrificed to the hatred of the people by the hands of those very +men they have unjustly advanced; such kind of men as buffoons, panders, +fiddlers, and such ragamuffins, thinking to assure to themselves the +possession of benefits unduly received, if they manifest to have him in +hatred and disdain of whom they hold them, and in this associate +themselves to the common judgment and opinion. + +The subjects of a prince excessive in gifts grow excessive in asking, +and regulate their demands, not by reason, but by example. We have, +seriously, very often reason to blush at our own impudence: we are +over-paid, according to justice, when the recompense equals our service; +for do we owe nothing of natural obligation to our princes? If he bear +our charges, he does too much; 'tis enough that he contribute to them: +the overplus is called benefit, which cannot be exacted: for the very +name Liberality sounds of Liberty. + +In our fashion it is never done; we never reckon what we have received; +we are only for the future liberality; wherefore, the more a prince +exhausts himself in giving, the poorer he grows in friends. How should +he satisfy immoderate desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled? +He who has his thoughts upon taking, never thinks of what he has taken; +covetousness has nothing so properly and so much its own as ingratitude. + +The example of Cyrus will not do amiss in this place, to serve the kings +of these times for a touchstone to know whether their gifts are well or +ill bestowed, and to see how much better that emperor conferred them than +they do, by which means they are reduced to borrow of unknown subjects, +and rather of them whom they have wronged than of them on whom they have +conferred their benefits, and so receive aids wherein there is nothing of +gratuitous but the name. Croesus reproached him with his bounty, and +cast up to how much his treasure would amount if he had been a little +closer-handed. He had a mind to justify his liberality, and therefore +sent despatches into all parts to the grandees of his dominions whom he +had particularly advanced, entreating every one of them to supply him +with as much money as they could, for a pressing occasion, and to send +him particulars of what each could advance. When all these answers were +brought to him, every one of his friends, not thinking it enough barely +to offer him so much as he had received from his bounty, and adding to it +a great deal of his own, it appeared that the sum amounted to a great +deal more than Croesus' reckoning. Whereupon Cyrus: "I am not," said he, +"less in love with riches than other princes, but rather a better +husband; you see with how small a venture I have acquired the inestimable +treasure of so many friends, and how much more faithful treasurers they +are to me than mercenary men without obligation, without affection; and +my money better laid up than in chests, bringing upon me the hatred, +envy, and contempt of other princes." + +The emperors excused the superfluity of their plays and public spectacles +by reason that their authority in some sort (at least in outward +appearance) depended upon the will of the people of Rome, who, time out +of mind, had been accustomed to be entertained and caressed with such +shows and excesses. But they were private citizens, who had nourished +this custom to gratify their fellow-citizens and companions (and chiefly +out of their own purses) by such profusion and magnificence it had quite +another taste when the masters came to imitate it: + + "Pecuniarum translatio a justis dominis ad alienos + non debet liberalis videri." + + ["The transferring of money from the right owners to strangers + ought not to have the title of liberality." + --Cicero, De Offic., i. 14.] + +Philip, seeing that his son went about by presents to gain the affection +of the Macedonians, reprimanded him in a letter after this manner: "What! +hast thou a mind that thy subjects shall look upon thee as their +cash-keeper and not as their king? Wilt thou tamper with them to win +their affections? Do it, then, by the benefits of thy virtue, and not by +those of thy chest." And yet it was, doubtless, a fine thing to bring +and plant within the amphitheatre a great number of vast trees, with all +their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest, +disposed in excellent order; and, the first day, to throw into it a +thousand ostriches and a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand +fallow-deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people: the next day, to +cause a hundred great lions, a hundred leopards, and three hundred bears +to be killed in his presence; and for the third day, to make three +hundred pair of gladiators fight it out to the last, as the Emperor +Probus did. It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all +faced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, +and within glittering with rare enrichments: + + "Baltheus en! gemmis, en illita porticus auro:" + + ["A belt glittering with jewels, and a portico overlaid with gold." + --Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 47. A baltheus was a shoulder-belt or + baldric.] + +all the sides of this vast space filled and environed, from the bottom to +the top, with three or four score rows of seats, all of marble also, and +covered with cushions: + + "Exeat, inquit, + Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri, + Cujus res legi non sufficit;" + + ["Let him go out, he said, if he has any sense of shame, and rise + from the equestrian cushion, whose estate does not satisfy the law." + --Juvenal, iii. 153. The Equites were required to possess a fortune + of 400 sestertia, and they sat on the first fourteen rows behind the + orchestra.] + +where a hundred thousand men might sit at their ease: and, the place +below, where the games were played, to make it, by art, first open and +cleave in chasms, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed +for the spectacle; and then, secondly, to be overflowed by a deep sea, +full of sea monsters, and laden with ships of war, to represent a naval +battle; and, thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combat of the +gladiators; and, for the fourth scene, to have it strown with vermilion +grain and storax,--[A resinous gum.]--instead of sand, there to make a +solemn feast for all that infinite number of people: the last act of one +only day: + + "Quoties nos descendentis arenae + Vidimus in partes, ruptaque voragine terrae + Emersisse feras, et eisdem saepe latebris + Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro!.... + Nec solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra + Contigit; aequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis + Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum, + Sen deforme pecus, quod in illo nascitur amni...." + + ["How often have we seen the stage of the theatre descend and part + asunder, and from a chasm in the earth wild beasts emerge, and then + presently give birth to a grove of gilded trees, that put forth + blossoms of enamelled flowers. Nor yet of sylvan marvels alone had + we sight: I saw sea-calves fight with bears, and a deformed sort of + cattle, we might call sea-horses."--Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 64.] + +Sometimes they made a high mountain advance itself, covered with +fruit-trees and other leafy trees, sending down rivulets of water from +the top, as from the mouth of a fountain: otherwhiles, a great ship was +seen to come rolling in, which opened and divided of itself, and after +having disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, +closed again, and vanished without help. At other times, from the floor +of this place, they made spouts of perfumed water dart their streams +upward, and so high as to sprinkle all that infinite multitude. To +defend themselves from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast +place one while covered over with purple curtains of needlework, and +by-and-by with silk of one or another colour, which they drew off or +on in a moment, as they had a mind: + + "Quamvis non modico caleant spectacula sole, + Vela reducuntur, cum venit Hermogenes." + + ["The curtains, though the sun should scorch the spectators, are + drawn in, when Hermogenes appears."-Martial, xii. 29, 15. M. + Tigellius Hermogenes, whom Horace and others have satirised. One + editor calls him "a noted thief," another: "He was a literary + amateur of no ability, who expressed his critical opinions with too + great a freedom to please the poets of his day." D.W.] + +The network also that was set before the people to defend them from the +violence of these turned-out beasts was woven of gold: + + "Auro quoque torts refulgent + Retia." + + ["The woven nets are refulgent with gold." + --Calpurnius, ubi supra.] + +If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these, it is where the +novelty and invention create more wonder than the expense; even in these +vanities we discover how fertile those ages were in other kind of wits +than these of ours. It is with this sort of fertility, as with all other +products of nature: not that she there and then employed her utmost +force: we do not go; we rather run up and down, and whirl this way and +that; we turn back the way we came. I am afraid our knowledge is weak in +all senses; we neither see far forward nor far backward; our +understanding comprehends little, and lives but a little while; 'tis +short both in extent of time and extent of matter: + + "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona + Mufti, sed omnes illacrymabiles + Urgentur, ignotique longs + Nocte." + + [ Many brave men lived before Agamemnon, but all are pressed by the + long night unmourned and unknown."--Horace, Od., iv. 9, 25.] + + "Et supra bellum Thebanum et funera Trojae + Non alias alii quoque res cecinere poetae?" + + ["Why before the Theban war and the destruction of Troy, have not + other poets sung other events?"--Lucretius, v. 327. Montaigne here + diverts himself m giving Lucretius' words a construction directly + contrary to what they bear in the poem. Lucretius puts the + question, Why if the earth had existed from all eternity, there had + not been poets, before the Theban war, to sing men's exploits. + --Coste.] + +And the narrative of Solon, of what he had learned from the Egyptian +priests, touching the long life of their state, and their manner of +learning and preserving foreign histories, is not, methinks, a testimony +to be refused in this consideration: + + "Si interminatam in omnes partes magnitudinem regionum videremus et + temporum, in quam se injiciens animus et intendens, ita late + longeque peregrinatur, ut nullam oram ultimi videat, in qua possit + insistere: in haec immensitate . . . infinita vis innumerabilium + appareret fomorum." + + ["Could we see on all parts the unlimited magnitude of regions and + of times, upon which the mind being intent, could wander so far and + wide, that no limit is to be seen, in which it can bound its eye, we + should, in that infinite immensity, discover an infinite force of + innumerable atoms." Here also Montaigne puts a sense quite + different from what the words bear in the original; but the + application he makes of them is so happy that one would declare they + were actually put together only to express his own sentiments. "Et + temporum" is an addition by Montaigne.--Coste.] + +Though all that has arrived, by report, of our knowledge of times past +should be true, and known by some one person, it would be less than +nothing in comparison of what is unknown. And of this same image of the +world, which glides away whilst we live upon it, how wretched and limited +is the knowledge of the most curious; not only of particular events, +which fortune often renders exemplary and of great concern, but of the +state of great governments and nations, a hundred more escape us than +ever come to our knowledge. We make a mighty business of the invention +of artillery and printing, which other men at the other end of the world, +in China, had a thousand years ago. Did we but see as much of the world +as we do not see, we should perceive, we may well believe, a perpetual +multiplication and vicissitude of forms. There is nothing single and +rare in respect of nature, but in respect of our knowledge, which is a +wretched foundation whereon to ground our rules, and that represents to +us a very false image of things. As we nowadays vainly conclude the +declension and decrepitude of the world, by the arguments we extract from +our own weakness and decay: + + "Jamque adeo est affecta aetas effoet aque tellus;" + + ["Our age is feeble, and the earth less fertile." + --Lucretius, ii. 1151.] + +so did he vainly conclude as to its birth and youth, by the vigour he +observed in the wits of his time, abounding in novelties and the +invention of divers arts: + + "Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa, recensque + Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia coepit + Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur, + Nunc etiam augescunt; nunc addita navigiis sunt + Multa." + + ["But, as I am of opinion, the whole of the world is of recent + origin, nor had its commencement in remote times; wherefore it is + that some arts are still being refined, and some just on the + increase; at present many additions are being made to shipping." + --Lucretius, v. 331.] + +Our world has lately discovered another (and who will assure us that it +is the last of its brothers, since the Daemons, the Sybils, and we +ourselves have been ignorant of this till now?), as large, well-peopled, +and fruitful as this whereon we live and yet so raw and childish, that we +are still teaching it it's a B C: 'tis not above fifty years since it +knew neither letters, weights, measures, vestments, corn, nor vines: it +was then quite naked in the mother's lap, and only lived upon what she +gave it. If we rightly conclude of our end, and this poet of the +youthfulness of that age of his, that other world will only enter into +the light when this of ours shall make its exit; the universe will fall +into paralysis; one member will be useless, the other in vigour. I am +very much afraid that we have greatly precipitated its declension and +ruin by our contagion; and that we have sold it opinions and our arts at +a very dear rate. It was an infant world, and yet we have not whipped +and subjected it to our discipline by the advantage of our natural worth +and force, neither have we won it by our justice and goodness, nor +subdued it by our magnanimity. Most of their answers, and the +negotiations we have had with them, witness that they were nothing behind +us in pertinency and clearness of natural understanding. The astonishing +magnificence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, amongst many other +things, the garden of the king, where all the trees, fruits, and plants, +according to the order and stature they have in a garden, were +excellently formed in gold; as, in his cabinet, were all the animals bred +upon his territory and in its seas; and the beauty of their manufactures, +in jewels, feathers, cotton, and painting, gave ample proof that they +were as little inferior to us in industry. But as to what concerns +devotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liberality, loyalty, and +plain dealing, it was of use to us that we had not so much as they; for +they have lost, sold, and betrayed themselves by this advantage over us. + +As to boldness and courage, stability, constancy against pain, hunger, +and death, I should not fear to oppose the examples I find amongst them +to the most famous examples of elder times that we find in our records on +this side of the world. Far as to those who subdued them, take but away +the tricks and artifices they practised to gull them, and the just +astonishment it was to those nations to see so sudden and unexpected an +arrival of men with beards, differing in language, religion, shape, and +countenance, from so remote a part of the world, and where they had never +heard there was any habitation, mounted upon great unknown monsters, +against those who had not only never seen a horse, but had never seen any +other beast trained up to carry a man or any other loading; shelled in a +hard and shining skin, with a cutting and glittering weapon in his hand, +against them, who, out of wonder at the brightness of a looking glass or +a knife, would exchange great treasures of gold and pearl; and who had +neither knowledge, nor matter with which, at leisure, they could +penetrate our steel: to which may be added the lightning and thunder of +our cannon and harquebuses, enough to frighten Caesar himself, if +surprised, with so little experience, against people naked, except where +the invention of a little quilted cotton was in use, without other arms, +at the most, than bows, stones, staves, and bucklers of wood; people +surprised under colour of friendship and good faith, by the curiosity of +seeing strange and unknown things; take but away, I say, this disparity +from the conquerors, and you take away all the occasion of so many +victories. When I look upon that in vincible ardour wherewith so many +thousands of men, women, and children so often presented and threw +themselves into inevitable dangers for the defence of their gods and +liberties; that generous obstinacy to suffer all extremities and +difficulties, and death itself, rather than submit to the dominion of +those by whom they had been so shamefully abused; and some of them +choosing to die of hunger and fasting, being prisoners, rather than to +accept of nourishment from the hands of their so basely victorious +enemies: I see, that whoever would have attacked them upon equal terms of +arms, experience, and number, would have had a hard, and, peradventure, +a harder game to play than in any other war we have seen. + +Why did not so noble a conquest fall under Alexander, or the ancient +Greeks and Romans; and so great a revolution and mutation of so many +empires and nations, fall into hands that would have gently levelled, +rooted up, and made plain and smooth whatever was rough and savage +amongst them, and that would have cherished and propagated the good seeds +that nature had there produced; mixing not only with the culture of land +and the ornament of cities, the arts of this part of the world, in what +was necessary, but also the Greek and Roman virtues, with those that were +original of the country? What a reparation had it been to them, and what +a general good to the whole world, had our first examples and deportments +in those parts allured those people to the admiration and imitation of +virtue, and had begotten betwixt them and us a fraternal society and +intelligence? How easy had it been to have made advantage of souls so +innocent, and so eager to learn, leaving, for the most part, naturally so +good inclinations before? Whereas, on the contrary, we have taken +advantage of their ignorance and inexperience, with greater ease to +incline them to treachery, luxury, avarice, and towards all sorts of +inhumanity and cruelty, by the pattern and example of our manners. Who +ever enhanced the price of merchandise at such a rate? So many cities +levelled with the ground, so many nations exterminated, so many millions +of people fallen by the edge of the sword, and the richest and most +beautiful part of the world turned upside down, for the traffic of pearl +and pepper? Mechanic victories! Never did ambition, never did public +animosities, engage men against one another in such miserable +hostilities, in such miserable calamities. + +Certain Spaniards, coasting the sea in quest of their mines, landed in a +fruitful and pleasant and very well peopled country, and there made to +the inhabitants their accustomed professions: "that they were peaceable +men, who were come from a very remote country, and sent on the behalf of +the King of Castile, the greatest prince of the habitable world, to whom +the Pope, God's vicegerent upon earth, had given the principality of all +the Indies; that if they would become tributaries to him, they should be +very gently and courteously used"; at the same time requiring of them +victuals for their nourishment, and gold whereof to make some pretended +medicine; setting forth, moreover, the belief in one only God, and the +truth of our religion, which they advised them to embrace, whereunto they +also added some threats. To which they received this answer: "That as to +their being peaceable, they did not seem to be such, if they were so. +As to their king, since he was fain to beg, he must be necessitous and +poor; and he who had made him this gift, must be a man who loved +dissension, to give that to another which was none of his own, to bring +it into dispute against the ancient possessors. As to victuals, they +would supply them; that of gold they had little; it being a thing they +had in very small esteem, as of no use to the service of life, whereas +their only care was to pass it over happily and pleasantly: but that what +they could find excepting what was employed in the service of their gods, +they might freely take. As to one only God, the proposition had pleased +them well; but that they would not change their religion, both because +they had so long and happily lived in it, and that they were not wont to +take advice of any but their friends, and those they knew: as to their +menaces, it was a sign of want of judgment to threaten those whose nature +and power were to them unknown; that, therefore, they were to make haste +to quit their coast, for they were not used to take the civilities and +professions of armed men and strangers in good part; otherwise they +should do by them as they had done by those others," showing them the +heads of several executed men round the walls of their city. A fair +example of the babble of these children. But so it is, that the +Spaniards did not, either in this or in several other places, where they +did not find the merchandise they sought, make any stay or attempt, +whatever other conveniences were there to be had; witness my CANNIBALS. +--[Chapter XXX. of Book I.] + +Of the two most puissant monarchs of that world, and, peradventure, of +this, kings of so many kings, and the last they turned out, he of Peru, +having been taken in a battle, and put to so excessive a ransom as +exceeds all belief, and it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his +conversation, given manifest signs of a frank, liberal, and constant +spirit, and of a clear and settled understanding, the conquerors had a +mind, after having exacted one million three hundred and twenty-five +thousand and five hundred weight of gold, besides silver, and other +things which amounted to no less (so that their horses were shod with +massy gold), still to see, at the price of what disloyalty and injustice +whatever, what the remainder of the treasures of this king might be, and +to possess themselves of that also. To this end a false accusation was +preferred against him, and false witnesses brought to prove that he went +about to raise an insurrection in his provinces, to procure his own +liberty; whereupon, by the virtuous sentence of those very men who had by +this treachery conspired his ruin, he was condemned to be publicly hanged +and strangled, after having made him buy off the torment of being burnt +alive, by the baptism they gave him immediately before execution; a +horrid and unheard of barbarity, which, nevertheless, he underwent +without giving way either in word or look, with a truly grave and royal +behaviour. After which, to calm and appease the people, aroused and +astounded at so strange a thing, they counterfeited great sorrow for his +death, and appointed most sumptuous funerals. + +The other king of Mexico,--[Guatimosin]--having for a long time defended +his beleaguered city, and having in this siege manifested the utmost of +what suffering and perseverance can do, if ever prince and people did, +and his misfortune having delivered him alive into his enemies' hands, +upon articles of being treated like a king, neither did he in his +captivity discover anything unworthy of that title. His enemies, after +their victory, not finding so much gold as they expected, when they had +searched and rifled with their utmost diligence, they went about to +procure discoveries by the most cruel torments they could invent upon the +prisoners they had taken: but having profited nothing by these, their +courage being greater than their torments, they arrived at last to such a +degree of fury, as, contrary to their faith and the law of nations, to +condemn the king himself, and one of the principal noblemen of his court, +to the rack, in the presence of one another. This lord, finding himself +overcome with pain, being environed with burning coals, pitifully turned +his dying eyes towards his master, as it were to ask him pardon that he +was able to endure no more; whereupon the king, darting at him a fierce +and severe look, as reproaching his cowardice and pusillanimity, with a +harsh and constant voice said to him thus only: "And what dost thou think +I suffer? am I in a bath? am I more at ease than thou?" Whereupon the +other immediately quailed under the torment and died upon the spot. The +king, half roasted, was carried thence; not so much out of pity (for what +compassion ever touched so barbarous souls, who, upon the doubtful +information of some vessel of gold to be made a prey of, caused not only +a man, but a king, so great in fortune and desert, to be broiled before +their eyes), but because his constancy rendered their cruelty still more +shameful. They afterwards hanged him for having nobly attempted to +deliver himself by arms from so long a captivity and subjection, and he +died with a courage becoming so magnanimous a prince. + +Another time, they burnt in the same fire four hundred and sixty men +alive at once, the four hundred of the common people, the sixty the +principal lords of a province, simply prisoners of war. We have these +narratives from themselves for they not only own it, but boast of it and +publish it. Could it be for a testimony of their justice or their zeal +to religion? Doubtless these are ways too differing and contrary to so +holy an end. Had they proposed to themselves to extend our faith, they +would have considered that it does not amplify in the possession of +territories, but in the gaining of men; and would have more than +satisfied themselves with the slaughters occasioned by the necessity of +war, without indifferently mixing a massacre, as upon wild beasts, as +universal as fire and sword could make it; having only, by intention, +saved so many as they meant to make miserable slaves of, for the work and +service of their mines; so that many of the captains were put to death +upon the place of conquest, by order of the kings of Castile, justly +offended with the horror of their deportment, and almost all of them +hated and disesteemed. God meritoriously permitted that all this great +plunder should be swallowed up by the sea in transportation, or in the +civil wars wherewith they devoured one another; and most of the men +themselves were buried in a foreign land without any fruit of their +victory. + +That the revenue from these countries, though in the hands of so +parsimonious and so prudent a prince,--[Phillip II.]--so little answers +the expectation given of it to his predecessors, and to that original +abundance of riches which was found at the first landing in those new +discovered countries (for though a great deal be fetched thence, yet we +see 'tis nothing in comparison of that which might be expected), is that +the use of coin was there utterly unknown, and that consequently their +gold was found all hoarded together, being of no other use but for +ornament and show, as a furniture reserved from father to son by many +puissant kings, who were ever draining their mines to make this vast heap +of vessels and statues for the decoration of their palaces and temples; +whereas our gold is always in motion and traffic; we cut it into a +thousand small pieces, and cast it into a thousand forms, and scatter and +disperse it in a thousand ways. But suppose our kings should thus hoard +up all the gold they could get in several ages and let it lie idle by +them. + +Those of the kingdom of Mexico were in some sort more civilised and more +advanced in arts than the other nations about them. Therefore did they +judge, as we do, that the world was near its period, and looked upon the +desolation we brought amongst them as a certain sign of it. They +believed that the existence of the world was divided into five ages, and +in the life of five successive suns, of which four had already ended +their time, and that this which gave them light was the fifth. The first +perished, with all other creatures, by an universal inundation of water; +the second by the heavens falling upon us and suffocating every living +thing to which age they assigned the giants, and showed bones to the +Spaniards, according to the proportion of which the stature of men +amounted to twenty feet; the third by fire, which burned and consumed +all; the fourth by an emotion of the air and wind, which came with such +violence as to beat down even many mountains, wherein the men died not, +but were turned into baboons. What impressions will not the weakness of +human belief admit? After the death of this fourth sun, the world was +twenty-five years in perpetual darkness: in the fifteenth of which a man +and a woman were created, who restored the human race: ten years after, +upon a certain day, the sun appeared newly created, and since the account +of their year takes beginning from that day: the third day after its +creation the ancient gods died, and the new ones were since born daily. +After what manner they think this last sun shall perish, my author knows +not; but their number of this fourth change agrees with the great +conjunction of stars which eight hundred and odd years ago, as +astrologers suppose, produced great alterations and novelties in the +world. + +As to pomp and magnificence, upon the account of which I engaged in this +discourse, neither Greece, Rome, nor Egypt, whether for utility, +difficulty, or state, can compare any of their works with the highway to +be seen in Peru, made by the kings of the country, from the city of Quito +to that of Cusco (three hundred leagues), straight, even, five-and-twenty +paces wide, paved, and provided on both sides with high and beautiful +walls; and close by them, and all along on the inside, two perennial +streams, bordered with beautiful plants, which they call moly. In this +work, where they met with rocks and mountains, they cut them through, and +made them even, and filled up pits and valleys with lime and stone to +make them level. At the end of every day's journey are beautiful +palaces, furnished with provisions, vestments, and arms, as well for +travellers as for the armies that are to pass that way. In the estimate +of this work I have reckoned the difficulty which is especially +considerable in that place; they did not build with any stones less than +ten feet square, and had no other conveniency of carriage but by drawing +their load themselves by force of arm, and knew not so much as the art of +scaffolding, nor any other way of standing to their work, but by throwing +up earth against the building as it rose higher, taking it away again +when they had done. + +Let us here return to our coaches. Instead of these, and of all other +sorts of carriages, they caused themselves to be carried upon men's +shoulders. This last king of Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus +carried betwixt two upon staves of gold, and set in a chair of gold in +the middle of his army. As many of these sedan-men as were killed to +make him fall (for they would take him alive), so many others (and they +contended for it) took the place of those who were slain, so that they +could never beat him down, what slaughter soever they made of these +people, till a horseman, seizing upon him, brought him to the ground. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS + +Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge our selves by railing at +it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its +defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how +much to be coveted soever. Greatness has, in general, this manifest +advantage, that it can lower itself when it pleases, and has, very near, +the choice of both the one and the other condition; for a man does not +fall from all heights; there are several from which one may descend +without falling down. It does, indeed, appear to me that we value it at +too high a rate, and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we have +either seen or heard have contemned it, or displaced themselves of their +own accord: its essence is not so evidently commodious that a man may +not, with out a miracle, refuse it. I find it a very hard thing to +undergo misfortunes, but to be content with a moderate measure of +fortune, and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy matter. 'Tis, +methinks, a virtue to which I, who am no conjuror, could without any +great endeavour arrive. What, then, is to be expected from them that +would yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal, +wherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself, +and fruition of greatness? Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself +better, according to itself, than when it proceeds by obscure and +unfrequented ways. + +I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as I can towards +desire. I have as much to wish for as another, and allow my wishes as +much liberty and indiscretion; but yet it never befell me to wish for +either empire or royalty, or the eminency of those high and commanding +fortunes: I do not aim that way; I love myself too well. When I think to +grow greater, 'tis but very moderately, and by a compelled and timorous +advancement, such as is proper for me in resolution, in prudence, in +health, in beauty, and even in riches too; but this supreme reputation, +this mighty authority, oppress my imagination; and, quite contrary to +that other,--[Julius Caesar.]--I should, peradventure, rather choose to +be the second or third in Perigord than the first at Paris at least, +without lying, rather the third at Paris than the first. I would neither +dispute with a porter, a miserable unknown, nor make crowds open in +adoration as I pass. I am trained up to a moderate condition, as well by +my choice as fortune; and have made it appear, in the whole conduct of my +life and enterprises, that I have rather avoided than otherwise the +climbing above the degree of fortune wherein God has placed me by my +birth; all natural constitution is equally just and easy. My soul is +such a poltroon, that I measure not good fortune by the height, but by +the facility. + +But if my heart be not great enough, 'tis open enough to make amends, at +any one's request, freely to lay open its weakness. Should any one put +me upon comparing the life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, handsome, +learned, healthful, understanding, and abounding in all sorts of +conveniences and pleasures, leading a quiet life, and all his own, his +mind well prepared against death, superstition, pain, and other +incumbrances of human necessity, dying, at last, in battle, with his +sword in his hand, for the defence of his country, on the one part; and +on the other part, the life of M. Regulus, so great and high as is known +to every one, and his end admirable; the one without name and without +dignity, the other exemplary and glorious to a wonder. I should +doubtless say, as Cicero did, could I speak as well as he. + + [Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 20, gives the preference to Regulus, and + proclaims him the happier man.] + +But if I was to compare them with my own, I should then also say that the +first is as much according to my capacity, and from desire, which I +conform to my capacity, as the second is far beyond it; that I could not +approach the last but with veneration, the other I could readily attain +by use. + +Let us return to our temporal greatness, from which we are digressed. I +disrelish all dominion, whether active or passive. Otanes, one of the +seven who had right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should +willingly have done, which was, that he gave up to his competitors his +right of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided +that he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and +subjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all +liberty that was not prejudicial to these, being as impatient of +commanding as of being commanded. + +The most painful and difficult employment in the world, in my opinion, is +worthily to discharge the office of a king. I excuse more of their +mistakes than men commonly do, in consideration of the intolerable weight +of their function, which astounds me. 'Tis hard to keep measure in so +immeasurable a power; yet so it is that it is, even to those who are not +of the best nature, a singular incitement to virtue to be seated in a +place where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon +record, and where the least benefit redounds to so many men, and where +your talent of administration, like that of preachers, principally +addresses itself to the people, no very exact judge, easy to deceive, and +easily content. There are few things wherein we can give a sincere +judgment, by reason that there are few wherein we have not, in some sort, +a private interest. Superiority and inferiority, dominion and subjection +are bound to a natural envy and contest, and must of necessity +perpetually intrench upon one another. I believe neither the one nor the +other touching the rights of the other party; let reason therefore, which +is inflexible and without passion, determine when we can avail ourselves +of it. 'Tis not above a month ago that I read over, two Scottish authors +contending upon this subject, of whom he who stands for the people makes +the king to be in a worse condition than a carter; he who writes for +monarchy places him some degrees above God in power and sovereignty. + +Now, the incommodity of greatness that I have taken to remark in this +place, upon some occasion that has lately put it into my head, is this: +there is not, peradventure, anything more pleasant in the commerce of +many than the trials that we make against one another, out of emulation +of honour and worth, whether in the exercises of the body or in those of +the mind, wherein sovereign greatness can have no true part. And, in +earnest, I have often thought that by force of respect itself men use +princes disdainfully and injuriously in that particular; for the thing I +was infinitely offended at in my childhood, that they who exercised with +me forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their +utmost endeavour, is what we see happen to them daily, every one finding +himself unworthy to contend with them. If we discover that they have the +least desire to get the better of us, there is no one who will not make +it his business to give it them, and who will not rather betray his own +glory than offend theirs; and will therein employ so much force only as +is necessary to save their honour. What share have they, then, in the +engagement, where every one is on their side? Methinks I see those +paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to jousts and battle with +enchanted arms and bodies. Brisson, + + [Plutarch, On Satisfaction or Tranquillity of the Mind. But in his + essay, How a Man may Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, he calls + him Chriso.] + +running against Alexander, purposely missed his blow, and made a fault in +his career; Alexander chid him for it, but he ought to have had him +whipped. Upon this consideration Carneades said, that "the sons of +princes learned nothing right but to manage horses; by reason that, in +all their other exercises, every one bends and yields to them; but a +horse, that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier, throws the son of a +king with no more ceremony than he would throw that of a porter." + +Homer was fain to consent that Venus, so sweet and delicate a goddess as +she was, should be wounded at the battle of Troy, thereby to ascribe +courage and boldness to her qualities that cannot possibly be in those +who are exempt from danger. The gods are made to be angry, to fear, to +run away, to be jealous, to grieve, to be transported with passions, to +honour them with the virtues that, amongst us, are built upon these +imperfections. Who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty, can +claim no interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents of +hazardous actions. 'Tis pity a man should be so potent that all things +must give way to him; fortune therein sets you too remote from society, +and places you in too great a solitude. This easiness and mean facility +of making all things bow under you, is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure: +'tis to slide, not to go; 'tis to sleep, and not to live. Conceive man +accompanied with omnipotence: you overwhelm him; he must beg disturbance +and opposition as an alms: his being and his good are in indigence. Evil +to man is in its turn good, and good evil. Neither is pain always to be +shunned, nor pleasure always to be pursued. + +Their good qualities are dead and lost; for they can only be perceived by +comparison, and we put them out of this: they have little knowledge of +true praise, having their ears deafened with so continual and uniform an +approbation. Have they to do with the stupidest of all their subjects? +they have no means to take any advantage of him; if he but say: "'Tis +because he is my king," he thinks he has said enough to express that he +therefore suffered himself to be overcome. This quality stifles and +consumes the other true and essential qualities: they are sunk in the +royalty, and leave them nothing to recommend themselves with but actions +that directly concern and serve the function of their place; 'tis so much +to be a king, that this alone remains to them. The outer glare that +environs him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there +repelled and dissipated, being filled and stopped by this prevailing +light. The senate awarded the prize of eloquence to Tiberius; he refused +it, esteeming that though it had been just, he could derive no advantage +from a judgment so partial, and that was so little free to judge. + +As we give them all advantages of honour, so do we soothe and authorise +all their vices and defects, not only by approbation, but by imitation +also. Every one of Alexander's followers carried his head on one side, +as he did; and the flatterers of Dionysius ran against one another in his +presence, and stumbled at and overturned whatever was under foot, to shew +they were as purblind as he. Hernia itself has also served to recommend +a man to favour; I have seen deafness affected; and because the master +hated his wife, Plutarch--[who, however, only gives one instance; and in +this he tells us that the man visited his wife privately.]--has seen his +courtiers repudiate theirs, whom they loved; and, which is yet more, +uncleanliness and all manner of dissoluteness have so been in fashion; as +also disloyalty, blasphemy, cruelty, heresy, superstition, irreligion, +effeminacy, and worse, if worse there be; and by an example yet more +dangerous than that of Mithridates' flatterers, who, as their master +pretended to the honour of a good physician, came to him to have +incisions and cauteries made in their limbs; for these others suffered +the soul, a more delicate and noble part, to be cauterised. + +But to end where I began: the Emperor Adrian, disputing with the +philosopher Favorinus about the interpretation of some word, Favorinus +soon yielded him the victory; for which his friends rebuking him, "You +talk simply," said he; "would you not have him wiser than I, who commands +thirty legions?" Augustus wrote verses against Asinius Pollio, and "I," +said Pollio, "say nothing, for it is not prudence to write in contest +with him who has power to proscribe." And they were right. For +Dionysius, because he could not equal Philoxenus in poesy and Plato in +discourse, condemned the one to the quarries, and sent the other to be +sold for a slave into the island of AEgina. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF THE ART OF CONFERENCE + +'Tis a custom of our justice to condemn some for a warning to others. To +condemn them for having done amiss, were folly, as Plato says, + + [Diogenes Laertius, however, in his Life of Plato, iii. 181, says + that Plato's offence was the speaking too freely to the tyrant.] + +for what is done can never be undone; but 'tis to the end they may offend +no more, and that others may avoid the example of their offence: we do +not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him. I do the same; my +errors are sometimes natural, incorrigible, and irremediable: but the +good which virtuous men do to the public, in making themselves imitated, +I, peradventure, may do in making my manners avoided: + + "Nonne vides, Albi ut male vivat filius? utque + Barrus inops? magnum documentum, ne patriam rein + Perdere guis velit;" + + ["Dost thou not see how ill the son of Albus lives? and how the + indigent Barrus? a great warning lest any one should incline to + dissipate his patrimony."--Horace, Sat., i. 4, 109.] + +publishing and accusing my own imperfections, some one will learn to be +afraid of them. The parts that I most esteem in myself, derive more +honour from decrying, than for commending myself which is the reason why +I so often fall into, and so much insist upon that strain. But, when all +is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; a man's +accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never: There may, +peradventure, be some of my own complexion who better instruct myself by +contrariety than by similitude, and by avoiding than by imitation. The +elder Cato was regarding this sort of discipline, when he said, "that the +wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise"; and Pausanias +tells us of an ancient player upon the harp, who was wont to make his +scholars go to hear one who played very ill, who lived over against him, +that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. The +horror of cruelty more inclines me to clemency, than any example of +clemency could possibly do. A good rider does not so much mend my seat, +as an awkward attorney or a Venetian, on horseback; and a clownish way of +speaking more reforms mine than the most correct. The ridiculous and +simple look of another always warns and advises me; that which pricks, +rouses and incites much better than that which tickles. The time is now +proper for us to reform backward; more by dissenting than by agreeing; by +differing more than by consent. Profiting little by good examples, I +make use of those that are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I +endeavour to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as +constant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as +good as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable +measures. + +The most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opinion, is +conversation; I find the use of it more sweet than of any other action of +life; and for that reason it is that, if I were now compelled to choose, +I should sooner, I think, consent to lose my sight, than my hearing and +speech. The Athenians, and also the Romans, kept this exercise in great +honour in their academies; the Italians retain some traces of it to this +day, to their great advantage, as is manifest by the comparison of our +understandings with theirs. The study of books is a languishing and +feeble motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises +at once. If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he +presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations +stir up mine; jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up +to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether +tedious in discourse. But, as our mind fortifies itself by the +communication of vigorous and regular understandings, 'tis not to be +expressed how much it loses and degenerates by the continual commerce and +familiarity we have with mean and weak spirits; there is no contagion +that spreads like that; I know sufficiently by experience what 'tis worth +a yard. I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with but few men, and +for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great +persons, and to make of a man's wit and words competitive parade is, in +my opinion, very unbecoming a man of honour. + +Folly is a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex +at it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than +folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. I enter +into conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch +as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and +wherein to take any deep root; no propositions astonish me, no belief +offends me, though never so contrary to my own; there is no so frivolous +and extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the production +of human wit. We, who deprive our judgment of the right of determining, +look indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and if we incline not our +judgment to them, yet we easily give them the hearing: Where one scale is +totally empty, I let the other waver under an old wife's dreams; and I +think myself excusable, if I prefer the odd number; Thursday rather than +Friday; if I had rather be the twelfth or fourteenth than the thirteenth +at table; if I had rather, on a journey, see a hare run by me than cross +my way, and rather give my man my left foot than my right, when he comes +to put on my stockings. All such reveries as are in credit around us, +deserve at least a hearing: for my part, they only with me import +inanity, but they import that. Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are +something more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself +to proceed so far, falls, peradventure, into the vice of obstinacy, to +avoid that of superstition. + +The contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they +only rouse and exercise, me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to +offer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form +of conference, and not of authority. At every opposition, we do not +consider whether or no it be dust, but, right or wrong, how to disengage +ourselves: instead of extending the arms, we thrust out our claws. I +could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend, so much as to tell +me that I am a fool, and talk I know not of what. I love stout +expressions amongst gentle men, and to have them speak as they think; we +must fortify and harden our hearing against this tenderness of the +ceremonious sound of words. I love a strong and manly familiarity and +conversation: a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and +vigour of its communication, like love in biting and scratching: it is +not vigorous and generous enough, if it be not quarrelsome, if it be +civilised and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock: + + "Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione potest." + + ["Neither can a man dispute, but he must contradict." + (Or:) "Nor can people dispute without reprehension." + --Cicero, De Finib., i. 8.] + +When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger: I +advance towards him who controverts, who instructs me; the cause of truth +ought to be the common cause both of the one and the other. What will +the angry man answer? Passion has already confounded his judgment; +agitation has usurped the place of reason. It were not amiss that the +decision of our disputes should pass by wager: that there might be a +material mark of our losses, to the end we might the better remember +them; and that my man might tell me: "Your ignorance and obstinacy cost +you last year, at several times, a hundred crowns." I hail and caress +truth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, +and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided +it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and +accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility +than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition +by my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense. + +Nevertheless, it is hard to bring the men of my time to it: they have not +the courage to correct, because they have not the courage to suffer +themselves to be corrected; and speak always with dissimulation in the +presence of one another: I take so great a pleasure in being judged and +known, that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the two forms I am +so: my imagination so often contradicts and condemns itself, that 'tis +all one to me if another do it, especially considering that I give his +reprehension no greater authority than I choose; but I break with him, +who carries himself so high, as I know of one who repents his advice, +if not believed, and takes it for an affront if it be not immediately +followed. That Socrates always received smilingly the contradictions +offered to his arguments, a man may say arose from his strength of +reason; and that, the advantage being certain to fall on his side, he +accepted them as a matter of new victory. But we see, on the contrary, +that nothing in argument renders our sentiment so delicate, as the +opinion of pre-eminence, and disdain of the adversary; and that, in +reason, 'tis rather for the weaker to take in good part the oppositions +that correct him and set him right. In earnest, I rather choose the +company of those who ruffle me than of those who fear me; 'tis a dull and +hurtful pleasure to have to do with people who admire us and approve of +all we say. Antisthenes commanded his children never to take it kindly +or for a favour, when any man commended them. I find I am much prouder +of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardour of dispute, +I make myself submit to my adversary's force of reason, than I am pleased +with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness. In fine, I +receive and admit of all manner of attacks that are direct, how weak +soever; but I am too impatient of those that are made out of form. I +care not what the subject is, the opinions are to me all one, and I am +almost indifferent whether I get the better or the worse. I can +peaceably argue a whole day together, if the argument be carried on with +method; I do not so much require force and subtlety as order; I mean the +order which we every day observe in the wranglings of shepherds and +shop-boys, but never amongst us: if they start from their subject, 'tis +out of incivility, and so 'tis with us; but their tumult and impatience +never put them out of their theme; their argument still continues its +course; if they interrupt, and do not stay for one another, they at least +understand one another. Any one answers too well for me, if he answers +what I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the +thing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion; +falling into wilful, malicious, and imperious way of disputation, of +which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a +fool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a +master, but my conscience also. + +Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal +crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed +and commanded by passion? We first quarrel with their reasons, and then +with the men. We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so, +every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the +fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth. Therefore it is +that Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred +people. To what end do you go about to inquire of him, who knows nothing +to the purpose? A man does no injury to the subject, when he leaves it +to seek how he may treat it; I do not mean by an artificial and +scholastic way, but by a natural one, with a sound understanding. What +will it be in the end? One flies to the east, the other to the west; +they lose the principal, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents after an +hour of tempest, they know not what they seek: one is low, the other +high, and a third wide. One catches at a word and a simile; another is +no longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, and thinks only +of going on at his own rate, not of answering you: another, finding +himself too weak to make good his rest, fears all, refuses all, at the +very beginning, confounds the subject; or, in the very height of the +dispute, stops short and is silent, by a peevish ignorance affecting a +proud contempt or a foolishly modest avoidance of further debate: +provided this man strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open; +the other counts his words, and weighs them for reasons; another only +brawls, and uses the advantage of his lungs. Here's one who learnedly +concludes against himself, and another who deafens you with prefaces and +senseless digressions: an other falls into downright railing, and seeks a +quarrel after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit that +presses too hard upon him: and a last man sees nothing into the reason of +the thing, but draws a line of circumvallation about you of dialectic +clauses, and the formulas of his art. + +Now, who would not enter into distrust of sciences, and doubt whether he +can reap from them any solid fruit for the service of life, considering +the use we put them to? + + "Nihil sanantibus litteris." + + ["Letters which cure nothing."--Seneca, Ep., 59.] + +Who has got understanding by his logic? Where are all her fair promises? + + "Nec ad melius vivendum, nec ad commodius disserendum." + + ["It neither makes a man live better nor talk better." + --Cicero, De Fin., i. 19.] + +Is there more noise or confusion in the scolding of herring-wives than in +the public disputes of men of this profession? I had rather my son +should learn in a tap-house to speak, than in the schools to prate. Take +a master of arts, and confer with him: why does he not make us sensible +of this artificial excellence? and why does he not captivate women and +ignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness of his reasons +and the beauty of his order? why does he not sway and persuade us to what +he will? why does a man, who has so much advantage in matter and +treatment, mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations? +Strip him of his gown, his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter our +ears with Aristotle, pure and simple, you will take him for one of us, +or worse. Whilst they torment us with this complication and confusion of +words, it fares with them, methinks, as with jugglers; their dexterity +imposes upon our senses, but does not at all work upon our belief this +legerdemain excepted, they perform nothing that is not very ordinary and +mean: for being the more learned, they are none the less fools. + + [So Hobbes said that if he had read as much as the academical + pedants he should have known as little.] + +I love and honour knowledge as much as they that have it, and in its true +use 'tis the most noble and the greatest acquisition of men; but in such +as I speak of (and the number of them is infinite), who build their +fundamental sufficiency and value upon it, who appeal from their +understanding to their memory: + + "Sub aliena umbra latentes," + + ["Sheltering under the shadow of others."--Seneca, Ep., 33.] + +and who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, if I dare to say so, worse +than stupidity. In my country, and in my time, learning improves +fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and +heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and +undigested mass; if airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtilises +them, even to exinanition. 'Tis a thing of almost indifferent quality; +a very useful accession to a well-born soul, but hurtful and pernicious +to others; or rather a thing of very precious use, that will not suffer +itself to be purchased at an under rate; in the hand of some 'tis a +sceptre, in that of others a fool's bauble. + +But let us proceed. What greater victory do you expect than to make your +enemy see and know that he is not able to encounter you? When you get +the better of your argument; 'tis truth that wins; when you get the +advantage of form and method,'tis then you who win. I am of opinion that +in, Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour of the disputants +than in favour of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthydemus and +Protagoras in the, knowledge of their impertinence, than in the +impertinence of their art. He takes hold of the first subject like one +who has a more profitable end than to explain it--namely, to clear the +understandings that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise. To hunt +after truth is properly our business, and we are inexcusable if we carry +on the chase impertinently and ill; to fail of seizing it is another +thing, for we are born to inquire after truth: it belongs to a greater +power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of +the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine +knowledge. The world is but a school of inquisition: it is not who shall +enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses. He may as well play +the fool who speaks true, as he who speaks false, for we are upon the +manner, not the matter, of speaking. 'Tis my humour as much to regard +the form as the substance, and the advocate as much as the cause, as +Alcibiades ordered we should: and every day pass away my time in reading +authors without any consideration of their learning; their manner is what +I look after, not their subject: And just so do I hunt after the +conversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach me, but that I may +know him, and that knowing him, if I think him worthy of imitation, I may +imitate him. Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, +prudently, and fully, is a talent that few men have. The falsity that +proceeds from ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it. I +have broken off several treaties that would have been of advantage to +me, by reason of the impertinent contestations of those with whom I +treated. I am not moved once in a year at the faults of those over whom +I have authority, but upon the account of the ridiculous obstinacy of +their allegations, denials, excuses, we are every day going together by +the ears; they neither understand what is said, nor why, and answer +accordingly; 'tis enough to drive a man mad. I never feel any hurt upon +my head but when 'tis knocked against another, and more easily forgive +the vices of my servants than their boldness, importunity, and folly; let +them do less, provided they understand what they do: you live in hope to +warm their affection to your service, but there is nothing to be had or +to be expected from a stock. + +But what, if I take things otherwise than they are? Perhaps I do; and +therefore it is that I accuse my own impatience, and hold, in the first +place, that it is equally vicious both in him that is in the right, and +in him that is in the wrong; for 'tis always a tyrannic sourness not to +endure a form contrary to one's own: and, besides, there cannot, in +truth, be a greater, more constant, nor more irregular folly than to be +moved and angry at the follies of the world, for it principally makes us +quarrel with ourselves; and the old philosopher never wanted an occasion +for his tears whilst he considered himself. Miso, one of the seven +sages, of a Timonian and Democritic humour, being asked, "what he +laughed at, being alone?"--"That I do laugh alone," answered he. How +many ridiculous things, in my own opinion, do I say and answer every day +that comes over my head? and then how many more, according to the +opinion of others? If I bite my own lips, what ought others to do? In +fine, we must live amongst the living, and let the river run under the +bridge without our care, or, at least, without our interference. In +truth, why do we meet a man with a hunch-back, or any other deformity, +without being moved, and cannot endure the encounter of a deformed mind +without being angry? this vicious sourness sticks more to the judge than +to the crime. Let us always have this saying of Plato in our mouths: "Do +not I think things unsound, because I am not sound in myself? Am I not +myself in fault? may not my observations reflect upon myself?"--a wise +and divine saying, that lashes the most universal and common error of +mankind. Not only the reproaches that we throw in the face of one +another, but our reasons also, our arguments and controversies, are +reboundable upon us, and we wound ourselves with our own weapons: of +which antiquity has left me enough grave examples. It was ingeniously +and home-said by him, who was the inventor of this sentence: + + "Stercus cuique suum bene olet." + + ["To every man his own excrements smell well."--Erasmus] + +We see nothing behind us; we mock ourselves an hundred times a day; when +we deride our neighbours; and we detest in others the defects which are +more manifest in us, and which we admire with marvellous inadvertency and +impudence. It was but yesterday that I heard a man of understanding and +of good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the folly of another, +who did nothing but torment everybody with the catalogue of his genealogy +and alliances, above half of them false (for they are most apt to fall +into such ridiculous discourses, whose qualities are most dubious and +least sure), and yet, would he have looked into himself, he would have +discerned himself to be no less intemperate and wearisome in extolling +his wife's pedigree. O importunate presumption, with which the wife sees +herself armed by the hands of her own husband. Did he understand Latin, +we should say to him: + + "Age, si hic non insanit satis sua sponte, instiga." + + ["Come! if of himself he is not mad enough, urge him on." + --Terence, And., iv. 2, 9.] + +I do not say that no man should accuse another, who is not clean +himself,--for then no one would ever accuse,--clean from the same sort of +spot; but I mean that our judgment, falling upon another who is then in +question, should not, at the same time, spare ourselves, but sentence us +with an inward and severe authority. 'Tis an office of charity, that he +who cannot reclaim himself from a vice, should, nevertheless, endeavour +to remove it from another, in whom, peradventure, it may not have so deep +and so malignant a root; neither do him who reproves me for my fault that +he himself is guilty of the same. What of that? The reproof is, +notwithstanding, true and of very good use. Had we a good nose, our own +ordure would stink worse to us, forasmuch as it is our own: and Socrates +is of opinion that whoever should find himself, his son, and a stranger +guilty of any violence and wrong, ought to begin with himself, present +himself first to the sentence of justice, and implore, to purge himself, +the assistance of the hand of the executioner; in the next place, he +should proceed to his son, and lastly, to the stranger. If this precept +seem too severe, he ought at least to present himself the first, to the +punishment of his own conscience. + +The senses are our first and proper judges, which perceive not things but +by external accidents; and 'tis no wonder, if in all the parts of the +service of our society, there is so perpetual and universal a mixture of +ceremonies and superficial appearances; insomuch that the best and most +effectual part of our polities therein consist. 'Tis still man with whom +we have to do, of whom the condition is wonderfully corporal. Let those +who, of these late years, would erect for us such a contemplative and +immaterial an exercise of religion, not wonder if there be some who think +it had vanished and melted through their fingers had it not more upheld +itself among us as a mark, title, and instrument of division and faction, +than by itself. As in conference, the gravity, robe, and fortune of him +who speaks, ofttimes gives reputation to vain arguments and idle words, +it is not to be presumed but that a man, so attended and feared, has not +in him more than ordinary sufficiency; and that he to whom the king has +given so many offices and commissions and charges, he so supercilious and +proud, has not a great deal more in him, than another who salutes him at +so great a distance, and who has no employment at all. Not only the +words, but the grimaces also of these people, are considered and put into +the account; every one making it his business to give them some fine and +solid interpretation. If they stoop to the common conference, and that +you offer anything but approbation and reverence, they then knock you +down with the authority of their experience: they have heard, they have +seen, they have done so and so: you are crushed with examples. I should +willingly tell them, that the fruit of a surgeon's experience, is not the +history of his practice and his remembering that he has cured four people +of the plague and three of the gout, unless he knows how thence to +extract something whereon to form his judgment, and to make us sensible +that he has thence become more skillful in his art. As in a concert of +instruments, we do not hear a lute, a harpsichord, or a flute alone, but +one entire harmony, the result of all together. If travel and offices +have improved them, 'tis a product of their understanding to make it +appear. 'Tis not enough to reckon experiences, they must weigh, sort and +distil them, to extract the reasons and conclusions they carry along with +them. There were never so many historians: it is, indeed, good and of +use to read them, for they furnish us everywhere with excellent and +laudable instructions from the magazine of their memory, which, +doubtless, is of great concern to the help of life; but 'tis not that we +seek for now: we examine whether these relaters and collectors of things +are commendable themselves. + +I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed. I am very ready to +oppose myself against those vain circumstances that delude our judgments +by the senses; and keeping my eye close upon those extraordinary +greatnesses, I find that at best they are men, as others are: + + "Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa + Fortuna." + + ["For in those high fortunes, common sense is generally rare." + --Juvenal, viii. 73.] + +Peradventure, we esteem and look upon them for less than they are, by +reason they undertake more, and more expose themselves; they do not +answer to the charge they have undertaken. There must be more vigour and +strength in the bearer than in the burden; he who has not lifted as much +as he can, leaves you to guess that he has still a strength beyond that, +and that he has not been tried to the utmost of what he is able to do; he +who sinks under his load, makes a discovery of his best, and the weakness +of his shoulders. This is the reason that we see so many silly souls +amongst the learned, and more than those of the better sort: they would +have made good husbandmen, good merchants, and good artisans: their +natural vigour was cut out to that proportion. Knowledge is a thing of +great weight, they faint under it: their understanding has neither vigour +nor dexterity enough to set forth and distribute, to employ or make use +of this rich and powerful matter; it has no prevailing virtue but in a +strong nature; and such natures are very rare--and the weak ones, says +Socrates, corrupt the dignity of philosophy in the handling, it appears +useless and vicious, when lodged in an ill-contrived mind. They spoil +and make fools of themselves: + + "Humani qualis simulator simius oris, + Quern puer arridens pretioso stamine serum + Velavit, nudasque nates ac terga reliquit, + Ludibrium mensis." + + ["Just like an ape, simulator of the human face, whom a wanton boy + has dizened up in rich silks above, but left the lower parts bare, + for a laughing-stock for the tables." + --Claudian, in Eutrop., i 303.] + +Neither is it enough for those who govern and command us, and have all +the world in their hands, to have a common understanding, and to be able +to do the same that we can; they are very much below us, if they be not +infinitely above us: as they promise more, so they are to perform more. + +And yet silence is to them, not only a countenance of respect and +gravity, but very often of good advantage too: for Megabyzus, going 'to +see Apelles in his painting-room, stood a great while without speaking a +word, and at last began to talk of his paintings, for which he received +this rude reproof: "Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some +great thing, by reason of thy chains and rich habit; but now that we have +heard thee speak, there is not the meanest boy in my workshop that does +not despise thee." Those princely ornaments, that mighty state, did not +permit him to be ignorant with a common ignorance, and to speak +impertinently of painting; he ought to have kept this external and +presumptive knowledge by silence. To how many foolish fellows of my time +has a sullen and silent mien procured the credit of prudence and +capacity! + +Dignities and offices are of necessity conferred more by fortune than +upon the account of merit; and we are often to blame, to condemn kings +when these are misplaced: on the contrary, 'tis a wonder they should have +so good luck, where there is so little skill: + + "Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos;" + + ["'Tis the chief virtue of a prince to know his people." + --Martial, viii. 15.] + +for nature has not given them a sight that can extend to so many people, +to discern which excels the rest, nor to penetrate into our bosoms, where +the knowledge of our wills and best value lies they must choose us by +conjecture and by groping; by the family, wealth, learning, and the voice +of the people, which are all very feeble arguments. Whoever could find +out a way by which they might judge by justice, and choose men by reason, +would, in this one thing, establish a perfect form of government. + +"Ay, but he brought that great affair to a very good pass." This is, +indeed, to say something, but not to say enough: for this sentence is +justly received, "That we are not to judge of counsels by events." +The Carthaginians punished the ill counsels of their captains, though +they were rectified by a successful issue; and the Roman people often +denied a triumph for great and very advantageous victories because the +conduct of their general was not answerable to his good fortune. +We ordinarily see, in the actions of the world, that Fortune, to shew +us her power in all things, and who takes a pride in abating our +presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them +fortunate in emulation of virtue; and most favours those operations the +web of which is most purely her own; whence it is that the simplest +amongst us bring to pass great business, both public and private; and, +as Seiramnes, the Persian, answered those who wondered that his affairs +succeeded so ill, considering that his deliberations were so wise, "that +he was sole master of his designs, but that success was wholly in the +power of fortune"; these may answer the same, but with a contrary turn. +Most worldly affairs are performed by themselves + + "Fata viam inveniunt;" + + ["The destinies find the way."--AEneid, iii. 395] + +the event often justifies a very foolish conduct; our interposition is +little more than as it were a running on by rote, and more commonly a +consideration of custom and example, than of reason. Being formerly +astonished at the greatness of some affair, I have been made acquainted +with their motives and address by those who had performed it, and have +found nothing in it but very ordinary counsels; and the most common and +usual are indeed, perhaps, the most sure and convenient for practice, if +not for show. What if the plainest reasons are the best seated? the +meanest, lowest, and most beaten more adapted to affairs? To maintain +the authority of the counsels of kings, it needs not that profane persons +should participate of them, or see further into them than the outmost +barrier; he who will husband its reputation must be reverenced upon +credit and taken altogether. My consultation somewhat rough-hews the +matter, and considers it lightly by the first face it presents: the +stress and main of the business I have been wont to refer to heaven; + + "Permitte divis caetera." + + ["Leave the rest to the gods."--Horace, Od., i. 9, 9.] + +Good and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two sovereign powers; 'tis folly +to think that human prudence can play the part of Fortune; and vain is +his attempt who presumes to comprehend both causes and consequences, and +by the hand to conduct the progress of his design; and most especially +vain in the deliberations of war. There was never greater circumspection +and military prudence than sometimes is seen amongst us: can it be that +men are afraid to lose themselves by the way, that they reserve +themselves to the end of the game? I moreover affirm that our wisdom +itself and consultation, for the most part commit themselves to the +conduct of chance; my will and my reason are sometimes moved by one +breath, and sometimes by another; and many of these movements there are +that govern themselves without me: my reason has uncertain and casual +agitations and impulsions: + + "Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus + Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat, + Concipiunt." + + ["The aspects of their minds change; and they conceive now such + ideas, now such, just so long as the wind agitated the clouds." + --Virgil, Georg., i. 42.] + +Let a man but observe who are of greatest authority in cities, and who +best do their own business; we shall find that they are commonly men of +the least parts: women, children, and madmen have had the fortune to +govern great kingdoms equally well with the wisest princes, and +Thucydides says, that the stupid more ordinarily do it than those of +better understandings; we attribute the effects of their good fortune to +their prudence: + + "Ut quisque Fortuna utitur, + Ita praecellet; atque exinde sapere illum omnes dicimus;" + + ["He makes his way who knows how to use Fortune, and thereupon we + all call him wise."--Plautus, Pseudol., ii. 3, 13.] + +wherefore I say unreservedly, events are a very poor testimony of our +worth and parts. + +Now, I was upon this point, that there needs no more but to see a man +promoted to dignity; though we knew him but three days before a man of +little regard, yet an image of grandeur of sufficiency insensibly steals +into our opinion, and we persuade ourselves that, being augmented in +reputation and train, he is also increased in merit; we judge of him, not +according to his worth, but as we do by counters, according to the +prerogative of his place. If it happen so that he fall again, and be +mixed with the common crowd, every one inquires with amazement into the +cause of his having been raised so high. "Is this he," say they, "was he +no wiser when he was there? Do princes satisfy themselves with so +little? Truly, we were in good hands." This is a thing that I have +often seen in my time. Nay, even the very disguise of grandeur +represented in our comedies in some sort moves and gulls us. That which +I myself adore in kings is the crowd of their adorers; all reverence and +submission are due to them, except that of the understanding: my reason +is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are. Melanthius being asked +what he thought of the tragedy of Dionysius, "I could not see it," said +he, "it was so clouded with language"; so most of those who judge of the +discourses of great men ought to say, "I did not understand his words, +they were so clouded with gravity, grandeur, and majesty." Antisthenes +one day tried to persuade the Athenians to give order that their asses +might be employed in tilling the ground as well as the horses were; to +which it was answered that that animal was not destined for such a +service: "That's all one," replied he, "you have only to order it: for +the most ignorant and incapable men you employ in the commands of your +wars incontinently become worthy enough, because you employ them"; to +which the custom of so many people, who canonise the king they have +chosen out of their own body, and are not content only to honour, but +must adore them, comes very near. Those of Mexico, after the ceremonies +of their king's coronation are over, dare no more look him in the face; +but, as if they had deified him by his royalty. Amongst the oaths they +make him take to maintain their religion, their laws, and liberties, to +be valiant, just, and mild, he moreover swears to make the sun run his +course in his wonted light, to drain the clouds at fit seasons, to make +rivers run their course, and to cause the earth to bear all things +necessary for his people. + +I differ from this common fashion, and am more apt to suspect the +capacity when I see it accompanied with that grandeur of fortune and +public applause; we are to consider of what advantage it is to speak when +a man pleases, to choose his subject, to interrupt or change it, with a +magisterial authority; to protect himself from the oppositions of others +by a nod, a smile, or silence, in the presence of an assembly that +trembles with reverence and respect. A man of a prodigious fortune +coming to give his judgment upon some slight dispute that was foolishly +set on foot at his table, began in these words: "It can be no other but +a liar or a fool that will say otherwise than so and so." Pursue this +philosophical point with a dagger in your hand. + +There is another observation I have made, from which I draw great +advantage; which is, that in conferences and disputes, every word that +seems to be good, is not immediately to be accepted. Most men are rich +in borrowed sufficiency: a man may say a good thing, give a good answer, +cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one +or the other. That a man may not understand all he borrows, may perhaps +be verified in myself. A man must not always presently yield, what truth +or beauty soever may seem to be in the opposite argument; either he must +stoutly meet it, or retire, under colour of not understanding it, to try, +on all parts, how it is lodged in the author. It may happen that we +entangle ourselves, and help to strengthen the point itself. I have +sometimes, in the necessity and heat of the combat, made answers that +have gone through and through, beyond my expectation or hope; I only gave +them in number, they were received in weight. As, when I contend with a +vigorous man, I please myself with anticipating his conclusions, I ease +him of the trouble of explaining himself, I strive to forestall his +imagination whilst it is yet springing and imperfect; the order and +pertinency of his understanding warn and threaten me afar off: I deal +quite contrary with the others; I must understand, and presuppose nothing +but by them. If they determine in general words, "this is good, that is +naught," and that they happen to be in the right, see if it be not +fortune that hits it off for them: let them a little circumscribe and +limit their judgment; why, or how, it is so. These universal judgments +that I see so common, signify nothing; these are men who salute a whole +people in a crowd together; they, who have a real acquaintance, take +notice of and salute them individually and by name. But 'tis a hazardous +attempt; and from which I have, more than every day, seen it fall out, +that weak understandings, having a mind to appear ingenious, in taking +notice, as they read a book, of what is best and most to be admired, fix +their admiration upon some thing so very ill chosen, that instead of +making us discern the excellence of the author; they make us very well +see their own ignorance. This exclamation is safe, "That is fine," after +having heard a whole page of Virgil; by that the cunning sort save +themselves; but to undertake to follow him line by line, and, with an +expert and tried judgment, to observe where a good author excels himself, +weighing the words, phrases, inventions, and his various excellences, one +after another; keep aloof from that: + + "Videndum est, non modo quid quisque loquatur, sed etiam quid + quisque sentiat, atque etiam qua de causa quisque sentiat." + + ["A man is not only to examine what every one says, but also what + every one thinks, and from what reason every one thinks." + --Cicero, De Offic:, i. 41.] + +I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish: they say a good +thing; let us examine how far they understand it, whence they have it, +and what they mean by it. We help them to make use of this fine +expression, of this fine sentence, which is none of theirs; they only +have it in keeping; they have bolted it out at a venture; we place it for +them in credit and esteem. You lend them your hand. To what purpose? +they do not think themselves obliged to you for it, and become more inept +still. Don't help them; let them alone; they will handle the matter like +people who are afraid of burning their fingers; they dare change neither +its seat nor light, nor break into it; shake it never so little, it slips +through their fingers; they give it up, be it never so strong or fair +they are fine weapons, but ill hafted: How many times have I seen the +experience of this? Now, if you come to explain anything to them, and to +confirm them, they catch at it, and presently rob you of the advantage of +your interpretation; "It was what I was about to say; it was just my +idea; if I did not express it so, it was for want of language." Mere +wind! Malice itself must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance. +The dogma of Hegesias, "that we are neither to hate nor accuse, but +instruct," is correct elsewhere; but here 'tis injustice and inhumanity +to relieve and set him right who stands in no need on't, and is the worse +for't. I love to let them step deeper into the mire; and so deep, that, +if it be possible, they may at last discern their error. + +Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition; and what +Cyrus answered to him, who importuned him to harangue his army, upon the +point of battle, "that men do not become valiant and warlike upon a +sudden, by a fine oration, no more than a man becomes a good musician by +hearing a fine song," may properly be said of such an admonition as this. +These are apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand, by a long and +continued education. We owe this care and this assiduity of correction +and instruction to our own people; but to go preach to the first +passer-by, and to become tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we +meet, is a thing that I abhor. I rarely do it, even in private +conversation, and rather give up the whole thing than proceed to these +initiatory and school instructions; my humour is unfit either to speak or +write for beginners; but for things that are said in common discourse, or +amongst other things, I never oppose them either by word or sign, how +false or absurd soever. + +As to the rest, nothing vexes me so much in folly as that it is more +satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be. 'Tis +unfortunate that prudence forbids us to satisfy and trust ourselves, +and always dismisses us timorous and discontented; whereas obstinacy and +temerity fill those who are possessed with them with joy and assurance. +'Tis for the most ignorant to look at other men over the shoulder, always +returning from the combat full of joy and triumph. And moreover, for the +most part, this arrogance of speech and gaiety of countenance gives them +the better of it in the opinion of the audience, which is commonly weak +and incapable of well judging and discerning the real advantage. +Obstinacy of opinion and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly; +is there anything so assured, resolute, disdainful, contemplative, +serious and grave as the ass? + +May we not include under the title of conference and communication the +quick and sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst +friends, pleasantly and wittily jesting and rallying with one another? +'Tis an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, and +which, if it be not so tense and serious as the other I spoke of but now, +is, as Lycurgus thought, no less smart and ingenious, nor of less +utility. For my part, I contribute to it more liberty than wit, and have +therein more of luck than invention; but I am perfect in suffering, for I +endure a retaliation that is not only tart, but indiscreet to boot, +without being moved at all; and whoever attacks me, if I have not a brisk +answer immediately ready, I do not study to pursue the point with a +tedious and impertinent contest, bordering upon obstinacy, but let it +pass, and hanging down cheerfully my ears, defer my revenge to another +and better time: there is no merchant that always gains: Most men change +their countenance and their voice where their wits fail, and by an +unseasonable anger, instead of revenging themselves, accuse at once their +own folly and impatience. In this jollity, we sometimes pinch the secret +strings of our imperfections which, at another and graver time, we cannot +touch without offence, and so profitably give one another a hint of our +defects. There are other jeux de main,--[practical jokes]--rude and +indiscreet, after the French manner, that I mortally hate; my skin is +very tender and sensible: I have in my time seen two princes of the blood +buried upon that very account. 'Tis unhandsome to fight in play. As to +the rest, when I have a mind to judge of any one, I ask him how far he is +contented with himself; to what degree his speaking or his work pleases +him. I will none of these fine excuses, "I did it only in sport, + + 'Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud.' + + ["That work was taken from the anvil half finished." + --Ovid, Trist., i. 6, 29.] + +I was not an hour about it: I have never looked at it since." Well, +then, say I, lay these aside, and give me a perfect one, such as you +would be measured by. And then, what do you think is the best thing in +your work? is it this part or that? is it grace or the matter, the +invention, the judgment, or the learning? For I find that men are, +commonly, as wide of the mark in judging of their own works, as of those +of others; not only by reason of the kindness they have for them, but for +want of capacity to know and distinguish them: the work, by its own force +and fortune, may second the workman, and sometimes outstrip him, beyond +his invention and knowledge. For my part, I judge of the value of other +men's works more obscurely than of my own; and place the Essays, now +high, or low, with great doubt and inconstancy. There are several books +that are useful upon the account of their subjects, from which the author +derives no praise; and good books, as well as good works, that shame the +workman. I may write the manner of our feasts, and the fashion of our +clothes, and may write them ill; I may publish the edicts of my time, and +the letters of princes that pass from hand to hand; I may make an +abridgment of a good book (and every abridgment of a good book is a +foolish abridgment), which book shall come to be lost; and so on: +posterity will derive a singular utility from such compositions: but what +honour shall I have unless by great good fortune? Most part of the +famous books are of this condition. + +When I read Philip de Commines, doubtless a very good author, several +years ago, I there took notice of this for no vulgar saying, "That a man +must have a care not to do his master so great service, that at last he +will not know how to give him his just reward"; but I ought to commend +the invention, not him, because I met with it in Tacitus, not long since: + + "Beneficia ea usque lxta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse; + ubi multum antevenere, pro gratis odium redditur;" + + ["Benefits are so far acceptable as they appear to be capable of + recompense; where they much exceed that point, hatred is returned + instead of thanks."--Tacitus, Annal., iv. 18.] + +and Seneca vigorously says: + + "Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, + non vult esse cui reddat:" + + ["For he who thinks it a shame not to requite, does not wish to + have the man live to whom he owes return."--Seneca, Ep., 81.] + +Q. Cicero says with less directness.: + + "Qui se non putat satisfacere, + amicus esse nullo modo potest." + + ["Who thinks himself behind in obligation, can by no + means be a friend."--Q. Cicero, De Petitione Consul, c. 9.] + +The subject, according to what it is, may make a man looked upon as +learned and of good memory; but to judge in him the parts that are most +his own and the most worthy, the vigour and beauty of his soul, one must +first know what is his own and what is not; and in that which is not his +own, how much we are obliged to him for the choice, disposition, +ornament, and language he has there presented us with. What if he has +borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it often falls out? We, who +are little read in books, are in this strait, that when we meet with a +high fancy in some new poet, or some strong argument in a preacher, we +dare not, nevertheless, commend it till we have first informed ourselves, +through some learned man, if it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some +other; until that I always stand upon my guard. + +I have lately been reading the history of Tacitus quite through, without +interrupting it with anything else (which but seldom happens with me, it +being twenty years since I have kept to any one book an hour together), +and I did it at the instance of a gentleman for whom France has a great +esteem, as well for his own particular worth, as upon the account of a +constant form of capacity and virtue which runs through a great many +brothers of them. I do not know any author in a public narrative who +mixes so much consideration of manners and particular inclinations: and I +am of a quite contrary opinion to him, holding that, having especially to +follow the lives of the emperors of his time, so various and extreme in +all sorts of forms, so many notable actions as their cruelty especially +produced in their subjects, he had a stronger and more attractive matter +to treat of than if he had had to describe battles and universal +commotions; so that I often find him sterile, running over those brave +deaths as if he feared to trouble us with their multitude and length. +This form of history is by much the most useful; public movements depend +most upon the conduct of fortune, private ones upon our own. 'Tis rather +a judgment than a narration of history; there are in it more precepts +than stories: it is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn; +'tis full of sententious opinions, right or wrong; 'tis a nursery of +ethic and politic discourses, for the use and ornament of those who have +any place in the government of the world. He always argues by strong and +solid reasons, after a pointed and subtle manner, according to the +affected style of that age, which was so in love with an inflated manner, +that where point and subtlety were wanting in things it supplied these +with lofty and swelling words. 'Tis not much unlike the style of Seneca: +I look upon Tacitus as more sinewy, and Seneca as more sharp. His pen +seems most proper for a troubled and sick state, as ours at present is; +you would often say that he paints and pinches us. + +They who doubt his good faith sufficiently accuse themselves of being his +enemy upon some other account. His opinions are sound, and lean to the +right side in the Roman affairs. And yet I am angry at him for judging +more severely of Pompey than consists with the opinion of those worthy +men who lived in the same time, and had dealings with him; and to have +reputed him on a par with Marius and Sylla, excepting that he was more +close. Other writers have not acquitted his intention in the government +of affairs from ambition and revenge; and even his friends were afraid +that victory would have transported him beyond the bounds of reason, but +not to so immeasurable a degree as theirs; nothing in his life threatened +such express cruelty and tyranny. Neither ought we to set suspicion +against evidence; and therefore I do not believe Plutarch in this matter. +That his narrations were genuine and straightforward may, perhaps, be +argued from this very thing, that they do not always apply to the +conclusions of his judgments, which he follows according to the bias he +has taken, very often beyond the matter he presents us withal, which he +has not deigned to alter in the least degree. He needs no excuse for +having approved the religion of his time, according as the laws enjoined, +and to have been ignorant of the true; this was his misfortune, not his +fault. + +I have principally considered his judgment, and am not very well +satisfied therewith throughout; as these words in the letter that +Tiberius, old and sick, sent to the senate. "What shall I write to you, +sirs, or how should I write to you, or what should I not write to you at +this time? May the gods and goddesses lay a worse punishment upon me +than I am every day tormented with, if I know!" I do not see why he +should so positively apply them to a sharp remorse that tormented the +conscience of Tiberius; at least, when I was in the same condition, I +perceived no such thing. + +And this also seemed to me a little mean in him that, having to say that +he had borne an honourable office in Rome, he excuses himself that he +does not say it out of ostentation; this seems, I say, mean for such a +soul as his; for not to speak roundly of a man's self implies some want +of courage; a man of solid and lofty judgment, who judges soundly and +surely, makes use of his own example upon all occasions, as well as those +of others; and gives evidence as freely of himself as of a third person. +We are to pass by these common rules of civility, in favour of truth and +liberty. I dare not only speak of myself, but to speak only of myself: +when I write of anything else, I miss my way and wander from my subject. +I am not so indiscreetly enamoured of myself, so wholly mixed up with, +and bound to myself, that I cannot distinguish and consider myself apart, +as I do a neighbour or a tree: 'tis equally a fault not to discern how +far a man's worth extends, and to say more than a man discovers in +himself. We owe more love to God than to ourselves, and know Him less; +and yet speak of Him as much as we will. + +If the writings of Tacitus indicate anything true of his qualities, he +was a great personage, upright and bold, not of a superstitious but of a +philosophical and generous virtue. One may think him bold in his +relations; as where he tells us, that a soldier carrying a burden of +wood, his hands were so frozen and so stuck to the load that they there +remained closed and dead, being severed from his arms. I always in such +things bow to the authority of so great witnesses. + +What also he says, that Vespasian, "by the favour of the god Serapis, +cured a blind woman at Alexandria by anointing her eyes with his spittle, +and I know not what other miracle," he says by the example and duty of +all his good historians. They record all events of importance; and +amongst public incidents are the popular rumours and opinions. 'Tis +their part to relate common beliefs, not to regulate them: that part +concerns divines and philosophers, directors of consciences; and +therefore it was that this companion of his, and a great man like +himself, very wisely said: + + "Equidem plura transcribo, quam credo: nam nec affirmare + sustineo, de quibus dubito, nec subducere quae accepi;" + + ["Truly, I set down more things than I believe, for I can neither + affirm things whereof I doubt, nor suppress what I have heard." + --Quintus Curtius, ix.] + +and this other: + + "Haec neque affirmare neque refellere operae + pretium est; famae rerum standum est." + + ["'Tis neither worth the while to affirm or to refute these things; + we must stand to report"--Livy, i., Praef., and viii. 6.] + +And writing in an age wherein the belief of prodigies began to decline, +he says he would not, nevertheless, forbear to insert in his Annals, and +to give a relation of things received by so many worthy men, and with so +great reverence of antiquity; 'tis very well said. Let them deliver to +us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it. I, who am +monarch of the matter whereof I treat, and who am accountable to none, do +not, nevertheless, always believe myself; I often hazard sallies of my +own wit, wherein I very much suspect myself, and certain verbal quibbles, +at which I shake my ears; but I let them go at a venture. I see that +others get reputation by such things: 'tis not for me alone to judge. I +present myself standing and lying, before and behind, my right side and +my left, and, in all my natural postures. Wits, though equal in force, +are not always equal in taste and application. + +This is what my memory presents to me in gross, and with uncertainty +enough; all judgments in gross are weak and imperfect. + + + + + ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + A hundred more escape us than ever come to our knowledge + A man must have courage to fear + A man never speaks of himself without loss + A man's accusations of himself are always believed + Agitation has usurped the place of reason + All judgments in gross are weak and imperfect + Any argument if it be carried on with method + Apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand + Arrogant ignorance + Avoid all magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten + Being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded + Defer my revenge to another and better time + Desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled + Detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us + Disdainful, contemplative, serious and grave as the ass + Do not, nevertheless, always believe myself + Events are a very poor testimony of our worth and parts. + Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment + Fault not to discern how far a man's worth extends + Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition + Folly satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be + Folly than to be moved and angry at the follies of the world + Give us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it + I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish + I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it + I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed + I love stout expressions amongst gentle men + I was too frightened to be ill + If it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some other + Ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it. + It is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn + "It was what I was about to say; it was just my idea," + Judge by justice, and choose men by reason + Knock you down with the authority of their experience + Learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds + Liberality at the expense of others + Malice must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance + Man must have a care not to do his master so great service + Mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations + Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency + My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners + My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are + Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd + New World: sold it opinions and our arts at a very dear rate + Obstinancy and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly + One must first know what is his own and what is not + Our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation + Passion has already confounded his judgment + Pinch the secret strings of our imperfections + Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play + Presumptive knowledge by silence + Silent mien procured the credit of prudence and capacity + Spectators can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure + Study of books is a languishing and feeble motion + The cause of truth ought to be the common cause + The event often justifies a very foolish conduct + The ignorant return from the combat full of joy and triumph + The very name Liberality sounds of Liberty. + There are some upon whom their rich clothes weep + There is no merchant that always gains + There is nothing single and rare in respect of nature + They have heard, they have seen, they have done so and so + They have not the courage to suffer themselves to be corrected + Tis impossible to deal fairly with a fool + To fret and vex at folly, as I do, is folly itself + Transferring of money from the right owners to strangers + Tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we meet + Tyrannic sourness not to endure a form contrary to one's own + Universal judgments that I see so common, signify nothing + "What he laughed at, being alone?"--"That I do laugh alone," + We are not to judge of counsels by events + We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him + We neither see far forward nor far backward + Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some great thing + Who has once been a very fool, will never after be very wise + Wide of the mark in judging of their own works + Wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 16 +by Michel de Montaigne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 16 *** + +***** This file should be named 3596.txt or 3596.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/9/3596/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.08.01*END** +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE + +Translated by Charles Cotton + +Edited by William Carew Hazilitt + +1877 + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME 16. + +VI. Of Coaches. +VII. Of the Inconvenience of Greatness. +VIII. Of the Art of Conference. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OF COACHES + +It is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they write of causes, +not only make use of those they think to be the true causes, but also of +those they believe not to be so, provided they have in them some beauty +and invention: they speak true and usefully enough, if it be ingeniously. +We cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and therefore crowd a +great many together, to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them: + + "Namque unam dicere causam + Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tamen sit." + + [Lucretius, vi. 704. --The sense is in the preceding passage.] + +Do you ask me, whence comes the custom of blessing those who sneeze? +We break wind three several ways; that which sallies from below is too +filthy; that which breaks out from the mouth carries with it some +reproach of gluttony; the third is sneezing, which, because it proceeds +from the head and is without offence, we give it this civil reception: do +not laugh at this distinction; they say 'tis Aristotle's. + +I think I have seen in Plutarch' (who of all the authors I know, is he +who has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with knowledge), his +giving as a reason for the, rising of the stomach in those who are at +sea, that it is occasioned by fear; having first found out some reason by +which he proves that fear may produce such an effect. I, who am very +subject to it, know well that this cause concerns not me; and I know it, +not by argument, but by necessary experience. Without instancing what +has been told me, that the same thing often happens in beasts, especially +hogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger; and what an acquaintance +of mine told me of himself, that though very subject to it, the +disposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him, being very +afraid in a violent storm, as it happened to that ancient: + + "Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;" + + ["I was too ill to think of danger." (Or the reverse:) + "I was too frightened to be ill."--Seneca, Ep., 53. 2] + +I was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and I +have had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death be +one), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment. Fear springs sometimes +as much from want of judgment as from want of courage. All the dangers I +have been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, sound, and +entire sight; and, indeed, a man must have courage to fear. It formerly +served me better than other help, so to order and regulate my retreat, +that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless without affright and +astonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupefied. +Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, not only +steady and temperate, but moreover lofty. Let us make a relation of that +which Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in arms: "I found him," +says he, "after the rout of our army, him and Lachez, last among those +who fled, and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I was +mounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as he had fought. I took +notice, in the first place, how much judgment and resolution he showed, +in comparison of Lachez, and then the bravery of his march, nothing +different from his ordinary gait; his sight firm and regular, considering +and judging what passed about him, looking one while upon those, and then +upon others, friends and enemies, after such a manner as encouraged +those, and signified to the others that he would sell his life dear to +any one who should attempt to take it from him, and so they came off; for +people are not willing to attack such kind of men, but pursue those they +see are in a fright." That is the testimony of this great captain, which +teaches us, what we every day experience, that nothing so much throws us +into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness of getting ourselves clear of +them: + + "Quo timoris minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est." + + ["When there is least fear, there is for the most part least + danger."--Livy, xxii. 5.] + +Our people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death, when +they would express that he thinks of it and foresees it: foresight is +equally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or ill. To consider +and judge of danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being astounded. +I do not find myself strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity +of this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever: if I +was once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never rise again very +sound. Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never +set her upright again: she retastes and researches herself too +profoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never let the +wound she had received heal and cicatrise. It has been well for me that +no sickness has yet discomposed her: at every charge made upon me, I +preserve my utmost opposition and defence; by which means the first that +should rout me would keep me from ever rallying again. I have no after- +game to play: on which side soever the inundation breaks my banks, I lie +open, and am drowned without remedy. Epicurus says, that a wise man can +never become a fool; I have an opinion reverse to this sentence, which +is, that he who has once been a very fool, will never after be very wise. +God grants me cold according to my cloth, and passions proportionable to +the means I have to withstand them: nature having laid me open on the one +side, has covered me on the other; having disarmed me of strength, she +has armed me with insensibility and an apprehension that is regular, or, +if you will, dull. + +I cannot now long endure (and when I was young could much less) either +coach, litter, or boat, and hate all other riding but on horseback, both +in town and country. But I can bear a litter worse than a coach; and, by +the same reason, a rough agitation upon the water, whence fear is +produced, better than the motions of a calm. At the little jerks of +oars, stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I know not how, both my +head and my stomach disordered; neither-can I endure to sit upon a +tottering chair. When the sail or the current carries us equally, or +that we are towed, the equal agitation does not disturb me at all; 'tis +an interrupted motion that offends me, and most of all when most slow: I +cannot otherwise express it. The physicians have ordered me to squeeze +and gird myself about the bottom of the belly with a napkin to remedy +this evil; which however I have not tried, being accustomed to wrestle +with my own defects, and overcome them myself. + +Would my memory serve me, I should not think my time ill spent in setting +down here the infinite variety that history presents us of the use of +chariots in the service of war: various, according to the nations and +according to the age; in my opinion, of great necessity and effect; so +that it is a wonder that we have lost all knowledge of them. I will only +say this, that very lately, in our fathers' time, the Hungarians made +very advantageous use of them against the Turks; having in every one of +them a targetter and a musketeer, and a number of harquebuses piled ready +and loaded, and all covered with a pavesade like a galliot --[Canvas +spread along the side of a ship of war, in action to screen the movements +of those on board.]-- They formed the front of their battle with three +thousand such coaches, and after the cannon had played, made them all +pour in their shot upon the enemy, who had to swallow that volley before +they tasted of the rest, which was no little advance; and that done, +these chariots charged into their squadrons to break them and open a way +for the rest; besides the use they might make of them to flank the +soldiers in a place of danger when marching to the field, or to cover a +post, and fortify it in haste. In my time, a gentleman on one of our +frontiers, unwieldy of body, and finding no horse able to carry his +weight, having a quarrel, rode through the country in a chariot of this +fashion, and found great convenience in it. But let us leave these +chariots of war. + +As if their effeminacy --[Which Cotton translates: "as if the +insignificancy of coaches." ]--had not been sufficiently known by better +proofs, the last kings of our first race travelled in a chariot drawn by +four oxen. Marc Antony was the first at Rome who caused himself to be +drawn in a coach by lions, and a singing wench with him. + + [Cytheris, the Roman courtezan.--Plutarch's Life of Antony, c. 3. + This, was the same person who is introduced by Gallus under the name + of Lycoris. Gallus doubtless knew her personally.] + +Heliogabalus did since as much, calling himself Cybele, the mother of the +gods; and also drawn by tigers, taking upon him the person of the god +Bacchus; he also sometimes harnessed two stags to his coach, another time +four dogs, and another four naked wenches, causing himself to be drawn by +them in pomp, stark naked too. The Emperor Firmus caused his chariot to +be drawn by ostriches of a prodigious size, so that it seemed rather to +fly than roll. + +The strangeness of these inventions puts this other fancy in my head: +that it is a kind of pusillanimity in monarchs, and a testimony that they +do not sufficiently understand themselves what they are, when they study +to make themselves honoured and to appear great by excessive expense: it +were indeed excusable in a foreign country, but amongst their own +subjects, where they are in sovereign command, and may do what they +please, it derogates from their dignity the most supreme degree of honour +to which they can arrive: just as, methinks, it is superfluous in a +private gentleman to go finely dressed at home; his house, his +attendants, and his kitchen sufficiently answer for him. The advice that +Isocrates gives his king seems to be grounded upon reason: that he should +be splendid in plate and furniture; forasmuch as it is an expense of +duration that devolves on his successors; and that he should avoid all +magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten. I loved to go fine +when I was a younger brother, for want of other ornament; and it became +me well: there are some upon whom their rich clothes weep: We have +strange stories of the frugality of our kings about their own persons and +in their gifts: kings who were great in reputation, valour, and fortune. +Demosthenes vehemently opposes the law of his city that assigned the +public money for the pomp of their public plays and festivals: he would +that their greatness should be seen in numbers of ships well equipped, +and good armies well provided for; and there is good reason to condemn +Theophrastus, who, in his Book on Riches, establishes a contrary opinion, +and maintains that sort of expense to be the true fruit of abundance. +They are delights, says Aristotle, that a only please the baser sort of +the people, and that vanish from the memory as soon as the people are +sated with them, and for which no serious and judicious man can have any +esteem. This money would, in my opinion, be much more royally, as more +profitably, justly, and durably, laid out in ports, havens, walls, and +fortifications; in sumptuous buildings, churches, hospitals, colleges, +the reforming of streets and highways: wherein Pope Gregory XIII. will +leave a laudable memory to future times: and wherein our Queen Catherine +would to long posterity manifest her natural liberality and munificence, +did her means supply her affection. Fortune has done me a great despite +in interrupting the noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great city, +and depriving me of the hope of seeing it finished before I die. + +Moreover, it seems to subjects, who are spectators of these triumphs, +that their own riches are exposed before them, and that they are +entertained at their own expense: for the people are apt to presume of +kings, as we do of our servants, that they are to take care to provide us +all things necessary in abundance, but not touch it themselves; and +therefore the Emperor Galba, being pleased with a musician who played to +him at supper, called for his money-box, and gave him a handful of crowns +that he took out of it, with these words: "This is not the public money, +but my own." Yet it so falls out that the people, for the most part, +have reason on their side, and that the princes feed their eyes with what +they have need of to fill their bellies. + +Liberality itself is not in its true lustre in a sovereign hand: private +men have therein the most right; for, to take it exactly, a king has +nothing properly his own; he owes himself to others: authority is not +given in favour of the magistrate, but of the people; a superior is never +made so for his own profit, but for the profit of the inferior, and a +physician for the sick person, and not for himself: all magistracy, as +well as all art, has its end out of itself wherefore the tutors of young +princes, who make it their business to imprint in them this virtue of +liberality, and preach to them to deny nothing and to think nothing so +well spent as what they give (a doctrine that I have known in great +credit in my time), either have more particular regard to their own +profit than to that of their master, or ill understand to whom they +speak. It is too easy a thing to inculcate liberality on him who has as +much as he will to practise it with at the expense of others; and, the +estimate not being proportioned to the measure of the gift but to the +measure of the means of him who gives it, it comes to nothing in so +mighty hands; they find themselves prodigal before they can be reputed +liberal. And it is but a little recommendation, in comparison with other +royal virtues: and the only one, as the tyrant Dionysius said, that suits +well with tyranny itself. I should rather teach him this verse of the +ancient labourer: + + ["That whoever will have a good crop must sow with his hand, and not + pour out of the sack."--Plutarch, Apothegms, Whether the Ancients + were more excellent in Arms than in Learning.] + +he must scatter it abroad, and not lay it on a heap in one place: and +that, seeing he is to give, or, to say better, to pay and restore to so +many people according as they have deserved, he ought to be a loyal and +discreet disposer. If the liberality of a prince be without measure or +discretion, I had rather he were covetous. + +Royal virtue seems most to consist in justice; and of all the parts of +justice that best denotes a king which accompanies liberality, for this +they have particularly reserved to be performed by themselves, whereas +all other sorts of justice they remit to the administration of others. +An immoderate bounty is a very weak means to acquire for them good will; +it checks more people than it allures: + + "Quo in plures usus sis, minus in multos uti possis.... + Quid autem est stultius, quam, quod libenter facias, + curare ut id diutius facere non possis;" + + ["By how much more you use it to many, by so much less will you be + in a capacity to use it to many more. And what greater folly can + there be than to order it so that what you would willingly do, you + cannot do longer."--Cicero, De Offic., ii. 15.] + +and if it be conferred without due respect of merit, it puts him out of +countenance who receives it, and is received ungraciously. Tyrants have +been sacrificed to the hatred of the people by the hands of those very +men they have unjustly advanced; such kind of men as buffoons, panders, +fiddlers, and such ragamuffins, thinking to assure to themselves the +possession of benefits unduly received, if they manifest to have him in +hatred and disdain of whom they hold them, and in this associate +themselves to the common judgment and opinion. + +The subjects of a prince excessive in gifts grow excessive in asking, +and regulate their demands, not by reason, but by example. We have, +seriously, very often reason to blush at our own impudence: we are over- +paid, according to justice, when the recompense equals our service; for +do we owe nothing of natural obligation to our princes? If he bear our +charges, he does too much; 'tis enough that he contribute to them: the +overplus is called benefit, which cannot be exacted: for the very name +Liberality sounds of Liberty. + +In our fashion it is never done; we never reckon what we have received; +we are only for the future liberality; wherefore, the more a prince +exhausts himself in giving, the poorer he grows in friends. How should +he satisfy immoderate desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled? +He who has his thoughts upon taking, never thinks of what he has taken; +covetousness has nothing so properly and so much its own as ingratitude. + +The example of Cyrus will not do amiss in this place, to serve the kings +of these times for a touchstone to know whether their gifts are well or +ill bestowed, and to see how much better that emperor conferred them than +they do, by which means they are reduced to borrow of unknown subjects, +and rather of them whom they have wronged than of them on whom they have +conferred their benefits, and so receive aids wherein there is nothing of +gratuitous but the name. Croesus reproached him with his bounty, and +cast up to how much his treasure would amount if he had been a little +closer-handed. He had a mind to justify his liberality, and therefore +sent despatches into all parts to the grandees of his dominions whom he +had particularly advanced, entreating every one of them to supply him +with as much money as they could, for a pressing occasion, and to send +him particulars of what each could advance. When all these answers were +brought to him, every one of his friends, not thinking it enough barely +to offer him so much as he had received from his bounty, and adding to it +a great deal of his own, it appeared that the sum amounted to a great +deal more than Croesus' reckoning. Whereupon Cyrus: "I am not," said he, +"less in love with riches than other princes, but rather a better +husband; you see with how small a venture I have acquired the inestimable +treasure of so many friends, and how much more faithful treasurers they +are to me than mercenary men without obligation, without affection; and +my money better laid up than in chests, bringing upon me the hatred, +envy, and contempt of other princes." + +The emperors excused the superfluity of their plays and public spectacles +by reason that their authority in some sort (at least in outward +appearance) depended upon the will of the people of Rome, who, time out +of mind, had been accustomed to be entertained and caressed with such +shows and excesses. But they were private citizens, who had nourished +this custom to gratify their fellow-citizens and companions (and chiefly +out of their own purses) by such profusion and magnificence it had quite +another taste when the masters came to imitate it: + + "Pecuniarum translatio a justis dominis ad alienos + non debet liberalis videri." + + ["The transferring of money from the right owners to strangers + ought not to have the title of liberality." + --Cicero, De Offic., i. 14.] + +Philip, seeing that his son went about by presents to gain the affection +of the Macedonians, reprimanded him in a letter after this manner: "What! +hast thou a mind that thy subjects shall look upon thee as their cash- +keeper and not as their king? Wilt thou tamper with them to win their +affections? Do it, then, by the benefits of thy virtue, and not by those +of thy chest." And yet it was, doubtless, a fine thing to bring and +plant within the amphitheatre a great number of vast trees, with all +their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest, +disposed in excellent order; and, the first day, to throw into it a +thousand ostriches and a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand +fallow-deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people: the next day, +to cause a hundred great lions, a hundred leopards, and three hundred +bears to be killed in his presence; and for the third day, to make three +hundred pair of gladiators fight it out to the last, as the Emperor +Probus did. It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all +faced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, +and within glittering with rare enrichments: + + "Baltheus en! gemmis, en illita porticus auro:" + + ["A belt glittering with jewels, and a portico overlaid with gold." + --Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 47. A baltheus was a shoulder-belt or + baldric.] + +all the sides of this vast space filled and environed, from the bottom to +the top, with three or four score rows of seats, all of marble also, and +covered with cushions: + + "Exeat, inquit, + Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri, + Cujus res legi non sufficit;" + + ["Let him go out, he said, if he has any sense of shame, and rise + from the equestrian cushion, whose estate does not satisfy the law." + --Juvenal, iii. 153. The Equites were required to possess a fortune + of 400 sestertia, and they sat on the first fourteen rows behind the + orchestra.] + +where a hundred thousand men might sit at their ease: and, the place +below, where the games were played, to make it, by art, first open and +cleave in chasms, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed +for the spectacle; and then, secondly, to be overflowed by a deep sea, +full of sea monsters, and laden with ships of war, to represent a naval +battle; and, thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combat of the +gladiators; and, for the fourth scene, to have it strown with vermilion +grain and storax,--[A resinous gum.]-- instead of sand, there to make a +solemn feast for all that infinite number of people: the last act of one +only day: + + "Quoties nos descendentis arenae + Vidimus in partes, ruptaque voragine terrae + Emersisse feras, et eisdem saepe latebris + Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro!.... + Nec solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra + Contigit; aequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis + Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum, + Sen deforme pecus, quod in illo nascitur amni...." + + ["How often have we seen the stage of the theatre descend and part + asunder, and from a chasm in the earth wild beasts emerge, and then + presently give birth to a grove of gilded trees, that put forth + blossoms of enamelled flowers. Nor yet of sylvan marvels alone had + we sight: I saw sea-calves fight with bears, and a deformed sort of + cattle, we might call sea-horses."--Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 64.] + +Sometimes they made a high mountain advance itself, covered with fruit- +trees and other leafy trees, sending down rivulets of water from the top, +as from the mouth of a fountain: otherwhiles, a great ship was seen to +come rolling in, which opened and divided of itself, and after having +disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, closed +again, and vanished without help. At other times, from the floor of this +place, they made spouts of perfumed water dart their streams upward, and +so high as to sprinkle all that infinite multitude. To defend themselves +from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast place one while +covered over with purple curtains of needlework, and by-and-by with silk +of one or another colour, which they drew off or on in a moment, as they +had a mind: + + "Quamvis non modico caleant spectacula sole, + Vela reducuntur, cum venit Hermogenes." + + ["The curtains, though the sun should scorch the spectators, are + drawn in, when Hermogenes appears."-Martial, xii. 29, 15. M. + Tigellius Hermogenes, whom Horace and others have satirised. One + editor calls him "a noted thief," another: "He was a literary + amateur of no ability, who expressed his critical opinions with too + great a freedom to please the poets of his day." D.W.] + +The network also that was set before the people to defend them from the +violence of these turned-out beasts was woven of gold: + + "Auro quoque torts refulgent + Retia." + + ["The woven nets are refulgent with gold." + --Calpurnius, ubi supra.] + +If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these, it is where the +novelty and invention create more wonder than the expense; even in these +vanities we discover how fertile those ages were in other kind of wits +than these of ours. It is with this sort of fertility, as with all other +products of nature: not that she there and then employed her utmost +force: we do not go; we rather run up and down, and whirl this way and +that; we turn back the way we came. I am afraid our knowledge is weak in +all senses; we neither see far forward nor far backward; our +understanding comprehends little, and lives but a little while; 'tis +short both in extent of time and extent of matter: + + "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona + Mufti, sed omnes illacrymabiles + Urgentur, ignotique longs + Nocte." + + [ Many brave men lived before Agamemnon, but all are pressed by the + long night unmourned and unknown."--Horace, Od., iv. 9, 25.] + + "Et supra bellum Thebanum et funera Trojae + Non alias alii quoque res cecinere poetae?" + + ["Why before the Theban war and the destruction of Troy, have not + other poets sung other events?"--Lucretius, v. 327. Montaigne here + diverts himself m giving Lucretius' words a construction directly + contrary to what they bear in the poem. Lucretius puts the + question, Why if the earth had existed from all eternity, there had + not been poets, before the Theban war, to sing men's exploits. + --Coste.] + +And the narrative of Solon, of what he had learned from the Egyptian +priests, touching the long life of their state, and their manner of +learning and preserving foreign histories, is not, methinks, a testimony +to be refused in this consideration: + + "Si interminatam in omnes partes magnitudinem regionum videremus et + temporum, in quam se injiciens animus et intendens, ita late + longeque peregrinatur, ut nullam oram ultimi videat, in qua possit + insistere: in haec immensitate . . . infinita vis innumerabilium + appareret fomorum." + + ["Could we see on all parts the unlimited magnitude of regions and + of times, upon which the mind being intent, could wander so far and + wide, that no limit is to be seen, in which it can bound its eye, we + should, in that infinite immensity, discover an infinite force of + innumerable atoms." Here also Montaigne puts a sense quite + different from what the words bear in the original; but the + application he makes of them is so happy that one would declare they + were actually put together only to express his own sentiments. "Et + temporum" is an addition by Montaigne.--Coste.] + +Though all that has arrived, by report, of our knowledge of times past +should be true, and known by some one person, it would be less than +nothing in comparison of what is unknown. And of this same image of the +world, which glides away whilst we live upon it, how wretched and limited +is the knowledge of the most curious; not only of particular events, +which fortune often renders exemplary and of great concern, but of the +state of great governments and nations, a hundred more escape us than +ever come to our knowledge. We make a mighty business of the invention +of artillery and printing, which other men at the other end of the world, +in China, had a thousand years ago. Did we but see as much of the world +as we do not see, we should perceive, we may well believe, a perpetual +multiplication and vicissitude of forms. There is nothing single and +rare in respect of nature, but in respect of our knowledge, which is a +wretched foundation whereon to ground our rules, and that represents to +us a very false image of things. As we nowadays vainly conclude the +declension and decrepitude of the world, by the arguments we extract from +our own weakness and decay: + + "Jamque adeo est affecta aetas effoet aque tellus;" + + ["Our age is feeble, and the earth less fertile." + --Lucretius, ii. 1151.] + +so did he vainly conclude as to its birth and youth, by the vigour he +observed in the wits of his time, abounding in novelties and the +invention of divers arts: + + "Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa, recensque + Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia coepit + Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur, + Nunc etiam augescunt; nunc addita navigiis sunt + Multa." + + ["But, as I am of opinion, the whole of the world is of recent + origin, nor had its commencement in remote times; wherefore it is + that some arts are still being refined, and some just on the + increase; at present many additions are being made to shipping." + --Lucretius, v. 331.] + +Our world has lately discovered another (and who will assure us that it +is the last of its brothers, since the Daemons, the Sybils, and we +ourselves have been ignorant of this till now?), as large, well-peopled, +and fruitful as this whereon we live and yet so raw and childish, that we +are still teaching it it's a B C: 'tis not above fifty years since it +knew neither letters, weights, measures, vestments, corn, nor vines: it +was then quite naked in the mother's lap, and only lived upon what she +gave it. If we rightly conclude of our end, and this poet of the +youthfulness of that age of his, that other world will only enter into +the light when this of ours shall make its exit; the universe will fall +into paralysis; one member will be useless, the other in vigour. I am +very much afraid that we have greatly precipitated its declension and +ruin by our contagion; and that we have sold it opinions and our arts at +a very dear rate. It was an infant world, and yet we have not whipped +and subjected it to our discipline by the advantage of our natural worth +and force, neither have we won it by our justice and goodness, nor +subdued it by our magnanimity. Most of their answers, and the +negotiations we have had with them, witness that they were nothing behind +us in pertinency and clearness of natural understanding. The astonishing +magnificence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, amongst many other +things, the garden of the king, where all the trees, fruits, and plants, +according to the order and stature they have in a garden, were +excellently formed in gold; as, in his cabinet, were all the animals bred +upon his territory and in its seas; and the beauty of their manufactures, +in jewels, feathers, cotton, and painting, gave ample proof that they +were as little inferior to us in industry. But as to what concerns +devotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liberality, loyalty, and +plain dealing, it was of use to us that we had not so much as they; for +they have lost, sold, and betrayed themselves by this advantage over us. + +As to boldness and courage, stability, constancy against pain, hunger, +and death, I should not fear to oppose the examples I find amongst them +to the most famous examples of elder times that we find in our records on +this side of the world. Far as to those who subdued them, take but away +the tricks and artifices they practised to gull them, and the just +astonishment it was to those nations to see so sudden and unexpected an +arrival of men with beards, differing in language, religion, shape, and +countenance, from so remote a part of the world, and where they had never +heard there was any habitation, mounted upon great unknown monsters, +against those who had not only never seen a horse, but had never seen any +other beast trained up to carry a man or any other loading; shelled in a +hard and shining skin, with a cutting and glittering weapon in his hand, +against them, who, out of wonder at the brightness of a looking glass or +a knife, would exchange great treasures of gold and pearl; and who had +neither knowledge, nor matter with which, at leisure, they could +penetrate our steel: to which may be added the lightning and thunder of +our cannon and harquebuses, enough to frighten Caesar himself, if +surprised, with so little experience, against people naked, except where +the invention of a little quilted cotton was in use, without other arms, +at the most, than bows, stones, staves, and bucklers of wood; people +surprised under colour of friendship and good faith, by the curiosity of +seeing strange and unknown things; take but away, I say, this disparity +from the conquerors, and you take away all the occasion of so many +victories. When I look upon that in vincible ardour wherewith so many +thousands of men, women, and children so often presented and threw +themselves into inevitable dangers for the defence of their gods and +liberties; that generous obstinacy to suffer all extremities and +difficulties, and death itself, rather than submit to the dominion of +those by whom they had been so shamefully abused; and some of them +choosing to die of hunger and fasting, being prisoners, rather than to +accept of nourishment from the hands of their so basely victorious +enemies: I see, that whoever would have attacked them upon equal terms of +arms, experience, and number, would have had a hard, and, peradventure, +a harder game to play than in any other war we have seen. + +Why did not so noble a conquest fall under Alexander, or the ancient +Greeks and Romans; and so great a revolution and mutation of so many +empires and nations, fall into hands that would have gently levelled, +rooted up, and made plain and smooth whatever was rough and savage +amongst them, and that would have cherished and propagated the good seeds +that nature had there produced; mixing not only with the culture of land +and the ornament of cities, the arts of this part of the world, in what +was necessary, but also the Greek and Roman virtues, with those that were +original of the country? What a reparation had it been to them, and what +a general good to the whole world, had our first examples and deportments +in those parts allured those people to the admiration and imitation of +virtue, and had begotten betwixt them and us a fraternal society and +intelligence? How easy had it been to have made advantage of souls so +innocent, and so eager to learn, leaving, for the most part, naturally so +good inclinations before? Whereas, on the contrary, we have taken +advantage of their ignorance and inexperience, with greater ease to +incline them to treachery, luxury, avarice, and towards all sorts of +inhumanity and cruelty, by the pattern and example of our manners. Who +ever enhanced the price of merchandise at such a rate? So many cities +levelled with the ground, so many nations exterminated, so many millions +of people fallen by the edge of the sword, and the richest and most +beautiful part of the world turned upside down, for the traffic of pearl +and pepper? Mechanic victories! Never did ambition, never did public +animosities, engage men against one another in such miserable +hostilities, in such miserable calamities. + +Certain Spaniards, coasting the sea in quest of their mines, landed in a +fruitful and pleasant and very well peopled country, and there made to +the inhabitants their accustomed professions: "that they were peaceable +men, who were come from a very remote country, and sent on the behalf of +the King of Castile, the greatest prince of the habitable world, to whom +the Pope, God's vicegerent upon earth, had given the principality of all +the Indies; that if they would become tributaries to him, they should be +very gently and courteously used"; at the same time requiring of them +victuals for their nourishment, and gold whereof to make some pretended +medicine; setting forth, moreover, the belief in one only God, and the +truth of our religion, which they advised them to embrace, whereunto they +also added some threats. To which they received this answer: "That as to +their being peaceable, they did not seem to be such, if they were so. +As to their king, since he was fain to beg, he must be necessitous and +poor; and he who had made him this gift, must be a man who loved +dissension, to give that to another which was none of his own, to bring +it into dispute against the ancient possessors. As to victuals, they +would supply them; that of gold they had little; it being a thing they +had in very small esteem, as of no use to the service of life, whereas +their only care was to pass it over happily and pleasantly: but that what +they could find excepting what was employed in the service of their gods, +they might freely take. As to one only God, the proposition had pleased +them well; but that they would not change their religion, both because +they had so long and happily lived in it, and that they were not wont to +take advice of any but their friends, and those they knew: as to their +menaces, it was a sign of want of judgment to threaten those whose nature +and power were to them unknown; that, therefore, they were to make haste +to quit their coast, for they were not used to take the civilities and +professions of armed men and strangers in good part; otherwise they +should do by them as they had done by those others," showing them the +heads of several executed men round the walls of their city. A fair +example of the babble of these children. But so it is, that the +Spaniards did not, either in this or in several other places, where they +did not find the merchandise they sought, make any stay or attempt, +whatever other conveniences were there to be had; witness my CANNIBALS.-- +[Chapter XXX. of Book I.] + +Of the two most puissant monarchs of that world, and, peradventure, of +this, kings of so many kings, and the last they turned out, he of Peru, +having been taken in a battle, and put to so excessive a ransom as +exceeds all belief, and it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his +conversation, given manifest signs of a frank, liberal, and constant +spirit, and of a clear and settled understanding, the conquerors had a +mind, after having exacted one million three hundred and twenty-five +thousand and five hundred weight of gold, besides silver, and other +things which amounted to no less (so that their horses were shod with +massy gold), still to see, at the price of what disloyalty and injustice +whatever, what the remainder of the treasures of this king might be, and +to possess themselves of that also. To this end a false accusation was +preferred against him, and false witnesses brought to prove that he went +about to raise an insurrection in his provinces, to procure his own +liberty; whereupon, by the virtuous sentence of those very men who had by +this treachery conspired his ruin, he was condemned to be publicly hanged +and strangled, after having made him buy off the torment of being burnt +alive, by the baptism they gave him immediately before execution; a +horrid and unheard of barbarity, which, nevertheless, he underwent +without giving way either in word or look, with a truly grave and royal +behaviour. After which, to calm and appease the people, aroused and +astounded at so strange a thing, they counterfeited great sorrow for his +death, and appointed most sumptuous funerals. + +The other king of Mexico,--[Guatimosin]-- having for a long time defended +his beleaguered city, and having in this siege manifested the utmost of +what suffering and perseverance can do, if ever prince and people did, +and his misfortune having delivered him alive into his enemies' hands, +upon articles of being treated like a king, neither did he in his +captivity discover anything unworthy of that title. His enemies, after +their victory, not finding so much gold as they expected, when they had +searched and rifled with their utmost diligence, they went about to +procure discoveries by the most cruel torments they could invent upon the +prisoners they had taken: but having profited nothing by these, their +courage being greater than their torments, they arrived at last to such a +degree of fury, as, contrary to their faith and the law of nations, to +condemn the king himself, and one of the principal noblemen of his court, +to the rack, in the presence of one another. This lord, finding himself +overcome with pain, being environed with burning coals, pitifully turned +his dying eyes towards his master, as it were to ask him pardon that he +was able to endure no more; whereupon the king, darting at him a fierce +and severe look, as reproaching his cowardice and pusillanimity, with a +harsh and constant voice said to him thus only: "And what dost thou think +I suffer? am I in a bath? am I more at ease than thou?" Whereupon the +other immediately quailed under the torment and died upon the spot. The +king, half roasted, was carried thence; not so much out of pity (for what +compassion ever touched so barbarous souls, who, upon the doubtful +information of some vessel of gold to be made a prey of, caused not only +a man, but a king, so great in fortune and desert, to be broiled before +their eyes), but because his constancy rendered their cruelty still more +shameful. They afterwards hanged him for having nobly attempted to +deliver himself by arms from so long a captivity and subjection, and he +died with a courage becoming so magnanimous a prince. + +Another time, they burnt in the same fire four hundred and sixty men +alive at once, the four hundred of the common people, the sixty the +principal lords of a province, simply prisoners of war. We have these +narratives from themselves for they not only own it, but boast of it and +publish it. Could it be for a testimony of their justice or their zeal +to religion? Doubtless these are ways too differing and contrary to so +holy an end. Had they proposed to themselves to extend our faith, they +would have considered that it does not amplify in the possession of +territories, but in the gaining of men; and would have more than +satisfied themselves with the slaughters occasioned by the necessity of +war, without indifferently mixing a massacre, as upon wild beasts, as +universal as fire and sword could make it; having only, by intention, +saved so many as they meant to make miserable slaves of, for the work and +service of their mines; so that many of the captains were put to death +upon the place of conquest, by order of the kings of Castile, justly +offended with the horror of their deportment, and almost all of them +hated and disesteemed. God meritoriously permitted that all this great +plunder should be swallowed up by the sea in transportation, or in the +civil wars wherewith they devoured one another; and most of the men +themselves were buried in a foreign land without any fruit of their +victory. + +That the revenue from these countries, though in the hands of so +parsimonious and so prudent a prince, --[Phillip II.]-- so little answers +the expectation given of it to his predecessors, and to that original +abundance of riches which was found at the first landing in those new +discovered countries (for though a great deal be fetched thence, yet we +see 'tis nothing in comparison of that which might be expected), is that +the use of coin was there utterly unknown, and that consequently their +gold was found all hoarded together, being of no other use but for +ornament and show, as a furniture reserved from father to son by many +puissant kings, who were ever draining their mines to make this vast heap +of vessels and statues for the decoration of their palaces and temples; +whereas our gold is always in motion and traffic; we cut it into a +thousand small pieces, and cast it into a thousand forms, and scatter and +disperse it in a thousand ways. But suppose our kings should thus hoard +up all the gold they could get in several ages and let it lie idle by +them. + +Those of the kingdom of Mexico were in some sort more civilised and more +advanced in arts than the other nations about them. Therefore did they +judge, as we do, that the world was near its period, and looked upon the +desolation we brought amongst them as a certain sign of it. They +believed that the existence of the world was divided into five ages, and +in the life of five successive suns, of which four had already ended +their time, and that this which gave them light was the fifth. The first +perished, with all other creatures, by an universal inundation of water; +the second by the heavens falling upon us and suffocating every living +thing to which age they assigned the giants, and showed bones to the +Spaniards, according to the proportion of which the stature of men +amounted to twenty feet; the third by fire, which burned and consumed +all; the fourth by an emotion of the air and wind, which came with such +violence as to beat down even many mountains, wherein the men died not, +but were turned into baboons. What impressions will not the weakness of +human belief admit? After the death of this fourth sun, the world was +twenty-five years in perpetual darkness: in the fifteenth of which a man +and a woman were created, who restored the human race: ten years after, +upon a certain day, the sun appeared newly created, and since the account +of their year takes beginning from that day: the third day after its +creation the ancient gods died, and the new ones were since born daily. +After what manner they think this last sun shall perish, my author knows +not; but their number of this fourth change agrees with the great +conjunction of stars which eight hundred and odd years ago, as +astrologers suppose, produced great alterations and novelties in the +world. + +As to pomp and magnificence, upon the account of which I engaged in this +discourse, neither Greece, Rome, nor Egypt, whether for utility, +difficulty, or state, can compare any of their works with the highway to +be seen in Peru, made by the kings of the country, from the city of Quito +to that of Cusco (three hundred leagues), straight, even, five-and-twenty +paces wide, paved, and provided on both sides with high and beautiful +walls; and close by them, and all along on the inside, two perennial +streams, bordered with beautiful plants, which they call moly. In this +work, where they met with rocks and mountains, they cut them through, and +made them even, and filled up pits and valleys with lime and stone to +make them level. At the end of every day's journey are beautiful +palaces, furnished with provisions, vestments, and arms, as well for +travellers as for the armies that are to pass that way. In the estimate +of this work I have reckoned the difficulty which is especially +considerable in that place; they did not build with any stones less than +ten feet square, and had no other conveniency of carriage but by drawing +their load themselves by force of arm, and knew not so much as the art of +scaffolding, nor any other way of standing to their work, but by throwing +up earth against the building as it rose higher, taking it away again +when they had done. + +Let us here return to our coaches. Instead of these, and of all other +sorts of carriages, they caused themselves to be carried upon men's +shoulders. This last king of Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus +carried betwixt two upon staves of gold, and set in a chair of gold in +the middle of his army. As many of these sedan-men as were killed to +make him fall (for they would take him alive), so many others (and they +contended for it) took the place of those who were slain, so that they +could never beat him down, what slaughter soever they made of these +people, till a horseman, seizing upon him, brought him to the ground. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS + +Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge our selves by railing at +it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its +defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how +much to be coveted soever. Greatness has, in general, this manifest +advantage, that it can lower itself when it pleases, and has, very near, +the choice of both the one and the other condition; for a man does not +fall from all heights; there are several from which one may descend +without falling down. It does, indeed, appear to me that we value it at +too high a rate, and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we have +either seen or heard have contemned it, or displaced themselves of their +own accord: its essence is not so evidently commodious that a man may +not, with out a miracle, refuse it. I find it a very hard thing to +undergo misfortunes, but to be content with a moderate measure of +fortune, and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy matter. 'Tis, +methinks, a virtue to which I, who am no conjuror, could without any +great endeavour arrive. What, then, is to be expected from them that +would yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal, +wherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself, +and fruition of greatness? Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself +better, according to itself, than when it proceeds by obscure and +unfrequented ways. + +I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as I can towards +desire. I have as much to wish for as another, and allow my wishes as +much liberty and indiscretion; but yet it never befell me to wish for +either empire or royalty, or the eminency of those high and commanding +fortunes: I do not aim that way; I love myself too well. When I think to +grow greater, 'tis but very moderately, and by a compelled and timorous +advancement, such as is proper for me in resolution, in prudence, in +health, in beauty, and even in riches too; but this supreme reputation, +this mighty authority, oppress my imagination; and, quite contrary to +that other,--[Julius Caesar.]-- I should, peradventure, rather choose to +be the second or third in Perigord than the first at Paris at least, +without lying, rather the third at Paris than the first. I would neither +dispute with a porter, a miserable unknown, nor make crowds open in +adoration as I pass. I am trained up to a moderate condition, as well by +my choice as fortune; and have made it appear, in the whole conduct of my +life and enterprises, that I have rather avoided than otherwise the +climbing above the degree of fortune wherein God has placed me by my +birth; all natural constitution is equally just and easy. My soul is +such a poltroon, that I measure not good fortune by the height, but by +the facility. + +But if my heart be not great enough, 'tis open enough to make amends, at +any one's request, freely to lay open its weakness. Should any one put +me upon comparing the life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, handsome, +learned, healthful, understanding, and abounding in all sorts of +conveniences and pleasures, leading a quiet life, and all his own, his +mind well prepared against death, superstition, pain, and other +incumbrances of human necessity, dying, at last, in battle, with his +sword in his hand, for the defence of his country, on the one part; and +on the other part, the life of M. Regulus, so great and high as is known +to every one, and his end admirable; the one without name and without +dignity, the other exemplary and glorious to a wonder. I should +doubtless say, as Cicero did, could I speak as well as he. + + [Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 20, gives the preference to Regulus, and + proclaims him the happier man.] + +But if I was to compare them with my own, I should then also say that the +first is as much according to my capacity, and from desire, which I +conform to my capacity, as the second is far beyond it; that I could not +approach the last but with veneration, the other I could readily attain +by use. + +Let us return to our temporal greatness, from which we are digressed. I +disrelish all dominion, whether active or passive. Otanes, one of the +seven who had right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should +willingly have done, which was, that he gave up to his competitors his +right of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided +that he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and +subjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all +liberty that was not prejudicial to these, being as impatient of +commanding as of being commanded. + +The most painful and difficult employment in the world, in my opinion, is +worthily to discharge the office of a king. I excuse more of their +mistakes than men commonly do, in consideration of the intolerable weight +of their function, which astounds me. 'Tis hard to keep measure in so +immeasurable a power; yet so it is that it is, even to those who are not +of the best nature, a singular incitement to virtue to be seated in a +place where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon +record, and where the least benefit redounds to so many men, and where +your talent of administration, like that of preachers, principally +addresses itself to the people, no very exact judge, easy to deceive, and +easily content. There are few things wherein we can give a sincere +judgment, by reason that there are few wherein we have not, in some sort, +a private interest. Superiority and inferiority, dominion and subjection +are bound to a natural envy and contest, and must of necessity +perpetually intrench upon one another. I believe neither the one nor the +other touching the rights of the other party; let reason therefore, which +is inflexible and without passion, determine when we can avail ourselves +of it. 'Tis not above a month ago that I read over, two Scottish authors +contending upon this subject, of whom he who stands for the people makes +the king to be in a worse condition than a carter; he who writes for +monarchy places him some degrees above God in power and sovereignty. + +Now, the incommodity of greatness that I have taken to remark in this +place, upon some occasion that has lately put it into my head, is this: +there is not, peradventure, anything more pleasant in the commerce of +many than the trials that we make against one another, out of emulation +of honour and worth, whether in the exercises of the body or in those of +the mind, wherein sovereign greatness can have no true part. And, in +earnest, I have often thought that by force of respect itself men use +princes disdainfully and injuriously in that particular; for the thing I +was infinitely offended at in my childhood, that they who exercised with +me forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their +utmost endeavour, is what we see happen to them daily, every one finding +himself unworthy to contend with them. If we discover that they have the +least desire to get the better of us, there is no one who will not make +it his business to give it them, and who will not rather betray his own +glory than offend theirs; and will therein employ so much force only as +is necessary to save their honour. What share have they, then, in the +engagement, where every one is on their side? Methinks I see those +paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to jousts and battle with +enchanted arms and bodies. Brisson, + + [Plutarch, On Satisfaction or Tranquillity of the Mind. But in his + essay, How a Man may Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, he calls + him Chriso.] + +running against Alexander, purposely missed his blow, and made a fault in +his career; Alexander chid him for it, but he ought to have had him +whipped. Upon this consideration Carneades said, that "the sons of +princes learned nothing right but to manage horses; by reason that, in +all their other exercises, every one bends and yields to them; but a +horse, that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier, throws the son of a +king with no more ceremony than he would throw that of a porter." + +Homer was fain to consent that Venus, so sweet and delicate a goddess as +she was, should be wounded at the battle of Troy, thereby to ascribe +courage and boldness to her qualities that cannot possibly be in those +who are exempt from danger. The gods are made to be angry, to fear, to +run away, to be jealous, to grieve, to be transported with passions, to +honour them with the virtues that, amongst us, are built upon these +imperfections. Who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty, can +claim no interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents of +hazardous actions. 'Tis pity a man should be so potent that all things +must give way to him; fortune therein sets you too remote from society, +and places you in too great a solitude. This easiness and mean facility +of making all things bow under you, is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure: +'tis to slide, not to go; 'tis to sleep, and not to live. Conceive man +accompanied with omnipotence: you overwhelm him; he must beg disturbance +and opposition as an alms: his being and his good are in indigence. Evil +to man is in its turn good, and good evil. Neither is pain always to be +shunned, nor pleasure always to be pursued. + +Their good qualities are dead and lost; for they can only be perceived by +comparison, and we put them out of this: they have little knowledge of +true praise, having their ears deafened with so continual and uniform an +approbation. Have they to do with the stupidest of all their subjects? +they have no means to take any advantage of him; if he but say: "'Tis +because he is my king," he thinks he has said enough to express that he +therefore suffered himself to be overcome. This quality stifles and +consumes the other true and essential qualities: they are sunk in the +royalty, and leave them nothing to recommend themselves with but actions +that directly concern and serve the function of their place; 'tis so much +to be a king, that this alone remains to them. The outer glare that +environs him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there +repelled and dissipated, being filled and stopped by this prevailing +light. The senate awarded the prize of eloquence to Tiberius; he refused +it, esteeming that though it had been just, he could derive no advantage +from a judgment so partial, and that was so little free to judge. + +As we give them all advantages of honour, so do we soothe and authorise +all their vices and defects, not only by approbation, but by imitation +also. Every one of Alexander's followers carried his head on one side, +as he did; and the flatterers of Dionysius ran against one another in his +presence, and stumbled at and overturned whatever was under foot, to shew +they were as purblind as he. Hernia itself has also served to recommend +a man to favour; I have seen deafness affected; and because the master +hated his wife, Plutarch --[who, however, only gives one instance; and in +this he tells us that the man visited his wife privately.]-- has seen his +courtiers repudiate theirs, whom they loved; and, which is yet more, +uncleanliness and all manner of dissoluteness have so been in fashion; as +also disloyalty, blasphemy, cruelty, heresy, superstition, irreligion, +effeminacy, and worse, if worse there be; and by an example yet more +dangerous than that of Mithridates' flatterers, who, as their master +pretended to the honour of a good physician, came to him to have +incisions and cauteries made in their limbs; for these others suffered +the soul, a more delicate and noble part, to be cauterised. + +But to end where I began: the Emperor Adrian, disputing with the +philosopher Favorinus about the interpretation of some word, Favorinus +soon yielded him the victory; for which his friends rebuking him, "You +talk simply," said he; "would you not have him wiser than I, who commands +thirty legions?" Augustus wrote verses against Asinius Pollio, and "I," +said Pollio, "say nothing, for it is not prudence to write in contest +with him who has power to proscribe." And they were right. For +Dionysius, because he could not equal Philoxenus in poesy and Plato in +discourse, condemned the one to the quarries, and sent the other to be +sold for a slave into the island of AEgina. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF THE ART OF CONFERENCE + +'Tis a custom of our justice to condemn some for a warning to others. To +condemn them for having done amiss, were folly, as Plato says, + + [Diogenes Laertius, however, in his Life of Plato, iii. 181, says + that Plato's offence was the speaking too freely to the tyrant.] + +for what is done can never be undone; but 'tis to the end they may offend +no more, and that others may avoid the example of their offence: we do +not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him. I do the same; my +errors are sometimes natural, incorrigible, and irremediable: but the +good which virtuous men do to the public, in making themselves imitated, +I, peradventure, may do in making my manners avoided: + + "Nonne vides, Albi ut male vivat filius? utque + Barrus inops? magnum documentum, ne patriam rein + Perdere guis velit;" + + ["Dost thou not see how ill the son of Albus lives? and how the + indigent Barrus? a great warning lest any one should incline to + dissipate his patrimony."--Horace, Sat., i. 4, 109.] + +publishing and accusing my own imperfections, some one will learn to be +afraid of them. The parts that I most esteem in myself, derive more +honour from decrying, than for commending myself which is the reason why +I so often fall into, and so much insist upon that strain. But, when all +is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; a man's +accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never: There may, +peradventure, be some of my own complexion who better instruct myself by +contrariety than by similitude, and by avoiding than by imitation. The +elder Cato was regarding this sort of discipline, when he said, "that the +wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise"; and Pausanias +tells us of an ancient player upon the harp, who was wont to make his +scholars go to hear one who played very ill, who lived over against him, +that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. The +horror of cruelty more inclines me to clemency, than any example of +clemency could possibly do. A good rider does not so much mend my seat, +as an awkward attorney or a Venetian, on horseback; and a clownish way of +speaking more reforms mine than the most correct. The ridiculous and +simple look of another always warns and advises me; that which pricks, +rouses and incites much better than that which tickles. The time is now +proper for us to reform backward; more by dissenting than by agreeing; by +differing more than by consent. Profiting little by good examples, I +make use of those that are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I +endeavour to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as +constant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as +good as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable +measures. + +The most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opinion, is +conversation; I find the use of it more sweet than of any other action of +life; and for that reason it is that, if I were now compelled to choose, +I should sooner, I think, consent to lose my sight, than my hearing and +speech. The Athenians, and also the Romans, kept this exercise in great +honour in their academies; the Italians retain some traces of it to this +day, to their great advantage, as is manifest by the comparison of our +understandings with theirs. The study of books is a languishing and +feeble motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises +at once. If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he +presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations +stir up mine; jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up +to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether +tedious in discourse. But, as our mind fortifies itself by the +communication of vigorous and regular understandings, 'tis not to be +expressed how much it loses and degenerates by the continual commerce and +familiarity we have with mean and weak spirits; there is no contagion +that spreads like that; I know sufficiently by experience what 'tis worth +a yard. I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with but few men, and +for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great +persons, and to make of a man's wit and words competitive parade is, in +my opinion, very unbecoming a man of honour. + +Folly is a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex +at it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than +folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. I enter +into conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch +as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and +wherein to take any deep root; no propositions astonish me, no belief +offends me, though never so contrary to my own; there is no so frivolous +and extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the production +of human wit. We, who deprive our judgment of the right of determining, +look indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and if we incline not our +judgment to them, yet we easily give them the hearing: Where one scale is +totally empty, I let the other waver under an old wife's dreams; and I +think myself excusable, if I prefer the odd number; Thursday rather than +Friday; if I had rather be the twelfth or fourteenth than the thirteenth +at table; if I had rather, on a journey, see a hare run by me than cross +my way, and rather give my man my left foot than my right, when he comes +to put on my stockings. All such reveries as are in credit around us, +deserve at least a hearing: for my part, they only with me import +inanity, but they import that. Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are +something more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself +to proceed so far, falls, peradventure, into the vice of obstinacy, to +avoid that of superstition. + +The contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they +only rouse and exercise, me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to +offer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form +of conference, and not of authority. At every opposition, we do not +consider whether or no it be dust, but, right or wrong, how to disengage +ourselves: instead of extending the arms, we thrust out our claws. I +could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend, so much as to tell +me that I am a fool, and talk I know not of what. I love stout +expressions amongst gentle men, and to have them speak as they think; we +must fortify and harden our hearing against this tenderness of the +ceremonious sound of words. I love a strong and manly familiarity and +conversation: a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and +vigour of its communication, like love in biting and scratching: it is +not vigorous and generous enough, if it be not quarrelsome, if it be +civilised and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock: + + "Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione potest." + + ["Neither can a man dispute, but he must contradict." + (Or:) "Nor can people dispute without reprehension." + -- Cicero, De Finib., i. 8.] + +When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger: I +advance towards him who controverts, who instructs me; the cause of truth +ought to be the common cause both of the one and the other. What will +the angry man answer? Passion has already confounded his judgment; +agitation has usurped the place of reason. It were not amiss that the +decision of our disputes should pass by wager: that there might be a +material mark of our losses, to the end we might the better remember +them; and that my man might tell me: "Your ignorance and obstinacy cost +you last year, at several times, a hundred crowns." I hail and caress +truth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, +and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided +it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and +accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility +than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition +by my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense. + +Nevertheless, it is hard to bring the men of my time to it: they have not +the courage to correct, because they have not the courage to suffer +themselves to be corrected; and speak always with dissimulation in the +presence of one another: I take so great a pleasure in being judged and +known, that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the two forms I am +so: my imagination so often contradicts and condemns itself, that 'tis +all one to me if another do it, especially considering that I give his +reprehension no greater authority than I choose; but I break with him, +who carries himself so high, as I know of one who repents his advice, +if not believed, and takes it for an affront if it be not immediately +followed. That Socrates always received smilingly the contradictions +offered to his arguments, a man may say arose from his strength of +reason; and that, the advantage being certain to fall on his side, he +accepted them as a matter of new victory. But we see, on the contrary, +that nothing in argument renders our sentiment so delicate, as the +opinion of pre-eminence, and disdain of the adversary; and that, in +reason, 'tis rather for the weaker to take in good part the oppositions +that correct him and set him right. In earnest, I rather choose the +company of those who ruffle me than of those who fear me; 'tis a dull and +hurtful pleasure to have to do with people who admire us and approve of +all we say. Antisthenes commanded his children never to take it kindly +or for a favour, when any man commended them. I find I am much prouder +of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardour of dispute, +I make myself submit to my adversary's force of reason, than I am pleased +with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness. In fine, I +receive and admit of all manner of attacks that are direct, how weak +soever; but I am too impatient of those that are made out of form. I +care not what the subject is, the opinions are to me all one, and I am +almost indifferent whether I get the better or the worse. I can +peaceably argue a whole day together, if the argument be carried on with +method; I do not so much require force and subtlety as order; I mean the +order which we every day observe in the wranglings of shepherds and shop- +boys, but never amongst us: if they start from their subject, 'tis out of +incivility, and so 'tis with us; but their tumult and impatience never +put them out of their theme; their argument still continues its course; +if they interrupt, and do not stay for one another, they at least +understand one another. Any one answers too well for me, if he answers +what I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the +thing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion; +falling into wilful, malicious, and imperious way of disputation, of +which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a +fool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a +master, but my conscience also. + +Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal +crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed +and commanded by passion? We first quarrel with their reasons, and then +with the men. We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so, +every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the +fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth. Therefore it is +that Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred +people. To what end do you go about to inquire of him, who knows nothing +to the purpose? A man does no injury to the subject, when he leaves it +to seek how he may treat it; I do not mean by an artificial and +scholastic way, but by a natural one, with a sound understanding. What +will it be in the end? One flies to the east, the other to the west; +they lose the principal, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents after an +hour of tempest, they know not what they seek: one is low, the other +high, and a third wide. One catches at a word and a simile; another is +no longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, and thinks only +of going on at his own rate, not of answering you: another, finding +himself too weak to make good his rest, fears all, refuses all, at the +very beginning, confounds the subject; or, in the very height of the +dispute, stops short and is silent, by a peevish ignorance affecting a +proud contempt or a foolishly modest avoidance of further debate: +provided this man strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open; +the other counts his words, and weighs them for reasons; another only +brawls, and uses the advantage of his lungs. Here's one who learnedly +concludes against himself, and another who deafens you with prefaces and +senseless digressions: an other falls into downright railing, and seeks a +quarrel after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit that +presses too hard upon him: and a last man sees nothing into the reason of +the thing, but draws a line of circumvallation about you of dialectic +clauses, and the formulas of his art. + +Now, who would not enter into distrust of sciences, and doubt whether he +can reap from them any solid fruit for the service of life, considering +the use we put them to? + + "Nihil sanantibus litteris." + + ["Letters which cure nothing."--Seneca, Ep., 59.] + +Who has got understanding by his logic? Where are all her fair promises? + + "Nec ad melius vivendum, nec ad commodius disserendum." + + ["It neither makes a man live better nor talk better." + --Cicero, De Fin., i. 19.] + +Is there more noise or confusion in the scolding of herring-wives than in +the public disputes of men of this profession? I had rather my son +should learn in a tap-house to speak, than in the schools to prate. Take +a master of arts, and confer with him: why does he not make us sensible +of this artificial excellence? and why does he not captivate women and +ignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness of his reasons +and the beauty of his order? why does he not sway and persuade us to what +he will? why does a man, who has so much advantage in matter and +treatment, mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations? +Strip him of his gown, his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter our +ears with Aristotle, pure and simple, you will take him for one of us, +or worse. Whilst they torment us with this complication and confusion of +words, it fares with them, methinks, as with jugglers; their dexterity +imposes upon our senses, but does not at all work upon our belief this +legerdemain excepted, they perform nothing that is not very ordinary and +mean: for being the more learned, they are none the less fools. + + [So Hobbes said that if he had read as much as the academical + pedants he should have known as little.] + +I love and honour knowledge as much as they that have it, and in its true +use 'tis the most noble and the greatest acquisition of men; but in such +as I speak of (and the number of them is infinite), who build their +fundamental sufficiency and value upon it, who appeal from their +understanding to their memory: + + "Sub aliena umbra latentes," + + ["Sheltering under the shadow of others."--Seneca, Ep., 33.] + +and who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, if I dare to say so, worse +than stupidity. In my country, and in my time, learning improves +fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and +heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and +undigested mass; if airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtilises +them, even to exinanition. 'Tis a thing of almost indifferent quality; +a very useful accession to a well-born soul, but hurtful and pernicious +to others; or rather a thing of very precious use, that will not suffer +itself to be purchased at an under rate; in the hand of some 'tis a +sceptre, in that of others a fool's bauble. + +But let us proceed. What greater victory do you expect than to make your +enemy see and know that he is not able to encounter you? When you get +the better of your argument; 'tis truth that wins; when you get the +advantage of form and method,'tis then you who win. I am of opinion that +in, Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour of the disputants +than in favour of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthydemus and +Protagoras in the, knowledge of their impertinence, than in the +impertinence of their art. He takes hold of the first subject like one +who has a more profitable end than to explain it--namely, to clear the +understandings that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise. To hunt +after truth is properly our business, and we are inexcusable if we carry +on the chase impertinently and ill; to fail of seizing it is another +thing, for we are born to inquire after truth: it belongs to a greater +power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of +the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine +knowledge. The world is but a school of inquisition: it is not who shall +enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses. He may as well play +the fool who speaks true, as he who speaks false, for we are upon the +manner, not the matter, of speaking. 'Tis my humour as much to regard +the form as the substance, and the advocate as much as the cause, as +Alcibiades ordered we should: and every day pass away my time in reading +authors without any consideration of their learning; their manner is what +I look after, not their subject: And just so do I hunt after the +conversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach me, but that I may +know him, and that knowing him, if I think him worthy of imitation, I may +imitate him. Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, +prudently, and fully, is a talent that few men have. The falsity that +proceeds from ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it. I +have broken off several treaties that would have been of advantage to +me, by reason of the impertinent contestations of those with whom I +treated. I am not moved once in a year at the faults of those over whom +I have authority, but upon the account of the ridiculous obstinacy of +their allegations, denials, excuses, we are every day going together by +the ears; they neither understand what is said, nor why, and answer +accordingly; 'tis enough to drive a man mad. I never feel any hurt upon +my head but when 'tis knocked against another, and more easily forgive +the vices of my servants than their boldness, importunity, and folly; let +them do less, provided they understand what they do: you live in hope to +warm their affection to your service, but there is nothing to be had or +to be expected from a stock. + +But what, if I take things otherwise than they are? Perhaps I do; and +therefore it is that I accuse my own impatience, and hold, in the first +place, that it is equally vicious both in him that is in the right, and +in him that is in the wrong; for 'tis always a tyrannic sourness not to +endure a form contrary to one's own: and, besides, there cannot, in +truth, be a greater, more constant, nor more irregular folly than to be +moved and angry at the follies of the world, for it principally makes us +quarrel with ourselves; and the old philosopher never wanted an occasion +for his tears whilst he considered himself. Miso, one of the seven +sages, of a Timonian and Democritic humour, being asked, "what he +laughed at, being alone?"--"That I do laugh alone," answered he. How +many ridiculous things, in my own opinion, do I say and answer every day +that comes over my head? and then how many more, according to the +opinion of others? If I bite my own lips, what ought others to do? In +fine, we must live amongst the living, and let the river run under the +bridge without our care, or, at least, without our interference. In +truth, why do we meet a man with a hunch-back, or any other deformity, +without being moved, and cannot endure the encounter of a deformed mind +without being angry? this vicious sourness sticks more to the judge than +to the crime. Let us always have this saying of Plato in our mouths: "Do +not I think things unsound, because I am not sound in myself? Am I not +myself in fault? may not my observations reflect upon myself?"--a wise +and divine saying, that lashes the most universal and common error of +mankind. Not only the reproaches that we throw in the face of one +another, but our reasons also, our arguments and controversies, are +reboundable upon us, and we wound ourselves with our own weapons: of +which antiquity. has left me enough grave examples. It was ingeniously +and home-said by him, who was the inventor of this sentence: + + "Stercus cuique suum bene olet." + + ["To every man his own excrements smell well."--Erasmus] + +We see nothing behind us; we mock ourselves an hundred times a day; when +we deride our neighbours; and we detest in others the defects which are +more manifest in us, and which we admire with marvellous inadvertency and +impudence. It was but yesterday that I heard a man of understanding and +of good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the folly of another, +who did nothing but torment everybody with the catalogue of his genealogy +and alliances, above half of them false (for they are most apt to fall +into such ridiculous discourses, whose qualities are most dubious and +least sure), and yet, would he have looked into himself, he would have +discerned himself to be no less intemperate arid wearisome in extolling +his wife's pedigree. O importunate presumption, with which the wife sees +herself armed by the hands of her own husband. Did he understand Latin, +we should say to him: + + "Age, si hic non insanit satis sua sponte, instiga." + + ["Come! if of himself he is not mad enough, urge him on." + --Terence, And., iv. 2, 9.] + +I do not say that no man should accuse another, who is not clean +himself,--for then no one would ever accuse,--clean from the same sort of +spot; but I mean that our judgment, falling upon another who is then in +question, should not, at the same time, spare ourselves, but sentence us +with an inward and severe authority. 'Tis an office of charity, that he +who cannot reclaim himself from a vice, should, nevertheless, endeavour +to remove it from another, in whom, peradventure, it may not have so deep +and so malignant a root; neither do him who reproves me for my fault that +he himself is guilty of the same. What of that? The reproof is, +notwithstanding, true and of very good use. Had we a good nose, our own +ordure would stink worse to us, forasmuch as it is our own: and Socrates +is of opinion that whoever should find himself, his son, and a stranger +guilty of any violence and wrong, ought to begin with himself, present +himself first to the sentence of justice, and implore, to purge himself, +the assistance of the hand of the executioner; in the next place, he +should proceed to his son, and lastly, to the stranger. If this precept +seem too severe, he ought at least to present himself the first, to the +punishment of his own conscience. + +The senses are our first and proper judges, which perceive not things but +by external accidents; and 'tis no wonder, if in all the parts of the +service of our society, there is so perpetual and universal a mixture of +ceremonies and superficial appearances; insomuch that the best and most +effectual part of our polities therein consist. 'Tis still man with whom +we have to do, of whom the condition is wonderfully corporal. Let those +who, of these late years, would erect for us such a contemplative and +immaterial an exercise of religion, not wonder if there be some who think +it had vanished and melted through their fingers had it not more upheld +itself among us as a mark, title, and instrument of division and faction, +than by itself. As in conference, the gravity, robe, and fortune of him +who speaks, ofttimes gives reputation to vain arguments and idle words, +it is not to be presumed but that a man, so attended and feared, has not +in him more than ordinary sufficiency; and that he to whom the king has +given so many offices and commissions and charges, he so supercilious and +proud, has not a great deal more in him, than another who salutes him at +so great a distance, and who has no employment at all. Not only the +words, but the grimaces also of these people, are considered and put into +the account; every one making it his business to give them some fine and +solid interpretation. If they stoop to the common conference, and that +you offer anything but approbation and reverence, they then knock you +down with the authority of their experience: they have heard, they have +seen, they have done so and so: you are crushed with examples. I should +willingly tell them, that the fruit of a surgeon's experience, is not the +history of his practice and his remembering that he has cured four people +of the plague and three of the gout, unless he knows how thence to +extract something whereon to form his judgment, and to make us sensible +that he has thence become more skillful in his art. As in a concert of +instruments, we do not hear a lute, a harpsichord, or a flute alone, but +one entire harmony, the result of all together. If travel and offices +have improved them, 'tis a product of their understanding to make it +appear. 'Tis not enough to reckon experiences, they must weigh, sort and +distil them, to extract the reasons and conclusions they carry along with +them. There were never so many historians: it is, indeed, good and of +use to read them, for they furnish us everywhere with excellent and +laudable instructions from the magazine of their memory, which, +doubtless, is of great concern to the help of life; but 'tis not that we +seek for now: we examine whether these relaters and collectors of things +are commendable themselves. + +I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed. I am very ready to +oppose myself against those vain circumstances that delude our judgments +by the senses; and keeping my eye close upon those extraordinary +greatnesses, I find that at best they are men, as others are: + + "Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa + Fortuna." + + ["For in those high fortunes, common sense is generally rare." + --Juvenal, viii. 73.] + +Peradventure, we esteem and look upon them for less than they are, by +reason they undertake more, and more expose themselves; they do not +answer to the charge they have undertaken. There must be more vigour and +strength in the bearer than in the burden; he who has not lifted as much +as he can, leaves you to guess that he has still a strength beyond that, +and that he has not been tried to the utmost of what he is able to do; he +who sinks under his load, makes a discovery of his best, and the weakness +of his shoulders. This is the reason that we see so many silly souls +amongst the learned, and more than those of the better sort: they would +have made good husbandmen, good merchants, and good artisans: their +natural vigour was cut out to that proportion. Knowledge is a thing of +great weight, they faint under it: their understanding has neither vigour +nor dexterity enough to set forth and distribute, to employ or make use +of this rich and powerful matter; it has no prevailing virtue but in a +strong nature; and such natures are very rare--and the weak ones, says +Socrates, corrupt the dignity of philosophy in the handling, it appears +useless and vicious, when lodged in an ill-contrived mind. They spoil +and make fools of themselves: + + "Humani qualis simulator simius oris, + Quern puer arridens pretioso stamine serum + Velavit, nudasque nates ac terga reliquit, + Ludibrium mensis." + + ["Just like an ape, simulator of the human face, whom a wanton boy + has dizened up in rich silks above, but left the lower parts bare, + for a laughing-stock for the tables." + --Claudian, in Eutrop., i 303.] + +Neither is it enough for those who govern and command us, and have all +the world in their hands, to have a common understanding, and to be able +to do the same that we can; they are very much below us, if they be not +infinitely above us: as they promise more, so they are to perform more. + +And yet silence is to them, not only a countenance of respect and +gravity, but very often of good advantage too: for Megabyzus, going 'to +see Apelles in his painting-room, stood a great while without speaking a +word, and at last began to talk of his paintings, for which he received +this rude reproof: "Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some +great thing, by reason of thy chains and rich habit; but now that we have +heard thee speak, there is not the meanest boy in my workshop that does +not despise thee." Those princely ornaments, that mighty state, did not +permit him to be ignorant with a common ignorance, and to speak +impertinently of painting; he ought to have kept this external and +presumptive knowledge by silence. To how many foolish fellows of my time +has a sullen and silent mien procured the credit of prudence and +capacity! + +Dignities and offices are of necessity conferred more by fortune than +upon the account of merit; and we are often to blame, to condemn kings +when these are misplaced: on the contrary, 'tis a wonder they should have +so good luck, where there is so little skill: + + "Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos;" + + ["'Tis the chief virtue of a prince to know his people." + --Martial, viii. 15.] + +for nature has not given them a sight that can extend to so many people, +to discern which excels the rest, nor to penetrate into our bosoms, where +the knowledge of our wills and best value lies they must choose us by +conjecture and by groping; by the family, wealth, learning, and the voice +of the people, which are all very feeble arguments. Whoever could find +out a way by which they might judge by justice, and choose men by reason, +would, in this one thing, establish a perfect form of government. + +"Ay, but he brought that great affair to a very good pass." This is, +indeed, to say something, but not to say enough: for this sentence is +justly received, "That we are not to judge of counsels by events." +The Carthaginians punished the ill counsels of their captains, though +they were rectified by a successful issue; and the Roman people often +denied a triumph for great and very advantageous victories because the +conduct of their general was not answerable to his good fortune. +We ordinarily see, in the actions of the world, that Fortune, to shew +us her power in all things, and who takes a pride in abating our +presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them +fortunate in emulation of virtue; and most favours those operations the +web of which is most purely her own; whence it is that the simplest +amongst us bring to pass great business, both public and private; and, +as Seiramnes, the Persian, answered those who wondered that his affairs +succeeded so ill, considering that his deliberations were so wise, "that +he was sole master of his designs, but that success was wholly in the +power of fortune"; these may answer the same, but with a contrary turn. +Most worldly affairs are performed by themselves + + "Fata viam inveniunt;" + + [The destinies find the way."--AEneid, iii. 395] + +the event often justifies a very foolish conduct; our interposition is +little more than as it were a running on by rote, and more commonly a +consideration of custom and example, than of reason. Being formerly +astonished at the greatness of some affair, I have been made acquainted +with their motives and address by those who had performed it, and have +found nothing in it but very ordinary counsels; and the most common and +usual are indeed, perhaps, the most sure and convenient for practice, if +not for show. What if the plainest reasons are the best seated? the +meanest, lowest, and most beaten more adapted to affairs? To maintain +the authority of the counsels of kings, it needs not that profane persons +should participate of them, or see further into them than the outmost +barrier; he who will husband its reputation must be reverenced upon +credit and taken altogether. My consultation somewhat rough-hews the +matter, and considers it lightly by the first face it presents: the +stress and main of the business I have been wont to refer to heaven; + + "Permitte divis caetera." + + ["Leave the rest to the gods."--Horace, Od., i. 9, 9.] + +Good and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two sovereign powers; 'tis folly +to think that human prudence can play the part of Fortune; and vain is +his attempt who presumes to comprehend both causes and consequences, and +by the hand to conduct the progress of his design; and most especially +vain in the deliberations of war. There was never greater circumspection +and military prudence than sometimes is seen amongst us: can it be that +men are afraid to lose themselves by the way, that they reserve +themselves to the end of the game? I moreover affirm that our wisdom +itself and consultation, for the most part commit themselves to the +conduct of chance; my will and my reason are sometimes moved by one +breath, and sometimes by another; and many of these movements there are +that govern themselves without me: my reason has uncertain and casual +agitations and impulsions: + + "Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus + Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat, + Concipiunt." + + [The aspects of their minds change; and they conceive now such + ideas, now such, just so long as the wind agitated the clouds." + --Virgil, Georg., i. 42.] + +Let a man but observe who are of greatest authority in cities, and who +best do their own business; we shall find that they are commonly men of +the least parts: women, children, and madmen have had the fortune to +govern great kingdoms equally well with the wisest princes, and +Thucydides says, that the stupid more ordinarily do it than those of +better understandings; we attribute the effects of their good fortune to +their prudence: + + "Ut quisque Fortuna utitur, + Ita praecellet; atque exinde sapere illum omnes dicimus;" + + ["He makes his way who knows how to use Fortune, and thereupon we + all call him wise."--Plautus, Pseudol., ii. 3, 13.] + +wherefore I say unreservedly, events are a very poor testimony of our +worth and parts. + +Now, I was upon this point, that there needs no more but to see a man +promoted to dignity; though we knew him but three days before a man of +little regard, yet an image of grandeur of sufficiency insensibly steals +into our opinion, and we persuade ourselves that, being augmented in +reputation and train, he is also increased in merit; we judge of him, not +according to his worth, but as we do by counters, according to the +prerogative of his place. If it happen so that he fall again, and be +mixed with the common crowd, every one inquires with amazement into the +cause of his having been raised so high. "Is this he," say they, "was he +no wiser when he was there? Do princes satisfy themselves with so +little? Truly, we were in good hands." This is a thing that I have +often seen in my time. Nay, even the very disguise of grandeur +represented in our comedies in some sort moves and gulls us. That which +I myself adore in kings is the crowd of their adorers; all reverence and +submission are due to them, except that of the understanding: my reason +is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are. Melanthius being asked +what he thought of the tragedy of Dionysius, "I could not see it," said +he, "it was so clouded with language"; so most of those who judge of the +discourses of great men ought to say, "I did not understand his words, +they were so clouded with gravity, grandeur, and majesty." Antisthenes +one day tried to persuade the Athenians to give order that their asses +might be employed in tilling the ground as well as the horses were; to +which it was answered that that animal was not destined for such a +service: "That's all one," replied he, "you have only to order it: for +the most ignorant and incapable men you employ in the commands of your +wars incontinently become worthy enough, because you employ them"; to +which the custom of so many people, who canonise the king they have +chosen out of their own body, and are not content only to honour, but +must adore them, comes very near. Those of Mexico, after the ceremonies +of their king's coronation are over, dare no more look him in the face; +but, as if they had deified him by his royalty. Amongst the oaths they +make him take to maintain their religion, their laws, and liberties, to +be valiant, just, and mild, he moreover swears to make the sun run his +course in his wonted light, to drain the clouds at fit seasons, to make +rivers run their course, and to cause the earth to bear all things +necessary for his people. + +I differ from this common fashion, and am more apt to suspect the +capacity when I see it accompanied with that grandeur of fortune and +public applause; we are to consider of what advantage it is to speak when +a man pleases, to choose his subject, to interrupt or change it, with a +magisterial authority; to protect himself from the oppositions of others +by a nod, a smile, or silence, in the presence of an assembly that +trembles with reverence and respect. A man of a prodigious fortune +coming to give his judgment upon some slight dispute that was foolishly +set on foot at his table, began in these words: "It can be no other but +a liar or a fool that will say otherwise than so and so." Pursue this +philosophical point with a dagger in your hand. + +There is another observation I have made, from which I draw great +advantage; which is, that in conferences and disputes, every word that +seems to be good, is not immediately to be accepted. Most men are rich +in borrowed sufficiency: a man may say a good thing, give a good answer, +cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one +or the other. That a man may not understand all he borrows, may perhaps +be verified in myself. A man must not always presently yield, what truth +or beauty soever may seem to be in the opposite argument; either he must +stoutly meet it, or retire, under colour of not understanding it, to try, +on all parts, how it is lodged in the author. It may happen that we +entangle ourselves, and help to strengthen the point itself. I have +sometimes, in the necessity and heat of the combat, made answers that +have gone through and through, beyond my expectation or hope; I only gave +them in number, they were received in weight. As, when I contend with a +vigorous man, I please myself with anticipating his conclusions, I ease +him of the trouble of explaining himself, I strive to forestall his +imagination whilst it is yet springing and imperfect; the order and +pertinency of his understanding warn and threaten me afar off: I deal +quite contrary with the others; I must understand, and presuppose nothing +but by them. If they determine in general words, " this is good, that is +naught," and that they happen to be in the right, see if it be not +fortune that hits it off for them: let them a little circumscribe and +limit their judgment; why, or how, it is so. These universal judgments +that I see so common, signify nothing; these are men who salute a whole +people in a crowd together; they, who have a real acquaintance, take +notice of and salute them individually and by name. But 'tis a hazardous +attempt; and from which I have, more than every day, seen it fall out, +that weak understandings, having a mind to appear ingenious, in taking +notice, as they read a book, of what is best and most to be admired, fix +their admiration upon some thing so very ill chosen, that instead of +making us discern the excellence of the author; they make us very well +see their own ignorance. This exclamation is safe, "That is fine," after +having heard a whole page of Virgil; by that the cunning sort save +themselves; but to undertake to follow him line by line, and, with an +expert and tried judgment, to observe where a good author excels himself, +weighing the words, phrases, inventions, and his various excellences, one +after another; keep aloof from that: + + "Videndum est, non modo quid quisque loquatur, sed etiam quid + quisque sentiat, atque etiam qua de causa quisque sentiat." + + [A man is not only to examine what every one says, but also what + every one thinks, and from what reason every one thinks. + --"Cicero, De Offic:, i. 41.] + +I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish: they say a good +thing; let us examine how far they understand it, whence they have it, +and what they mean by it. We help them to make use of this fine +expression, of this fine sentence, which is none of theirs; they only +have it in keeping; they have bolted it out at a venture; we place it for +them in credit and esteem. You lend them your hand. To what purpose? +they do not think themselves obliged to you for it, and become more inept +still. Don't help them; let them alone; they will handle the matter like +people who are afraid of burning their fingers; they dare change neither +its seat nor light, nor break into it; shake it never so little, it slips +through their fingers; they give it up, be it never so strong or fair +they are fine weapons, but ill hafted: How many times have I seen the +experience of this? Now, if you come to explain anything to them, and to +confirm them, they catch at it, and presently rob you of the advantage of +your interpretation; "It was what I was about to say; it was just my +idea; if I did not express it so, it was for want of language." Mere +wind! Malice itself must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance. +The dogma of Hegesias, "that we are neither to hate nor accuse, but +instruct," is correct elsewhere; but here 'tis injustice and inhumanity +to relieve and set him right who stands in no need on't, and is the worse +for't. I love to let them step deeper into the mire; and so deep, that, +if it be possible, they may at last discern their error. + +Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition; and what +Cyrus answered to him, who importuned him to harangue his army, upon the +point of battle, "that men do not become valiant and warlike upon a +sudden, by a fine oration, no more than a man becomes a good musician by +hearing a fine song," may properly be said of such an admonition as this. +These are apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand, by a long and +continued education. We owe this care and this assiduity of correction +and instruction to our own people; but to go preach to the first passer- +by, and to become tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we meet, +is a thing that I abhor. I rarely do it, even in private conversation, +and rather give up the whole thing than proceed to these initiatory and +school instructions; my humour is unfit either to speak or write for +beginners; but for things that are said in common discourse, or amongst +other things, I never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or +absurd soever. + +As to the rest, nothing vexes me so much in folly as that it is more +satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be. 'Tis +unfortunate that prudence forbids us to satisfy and trust ourselves, +and always dismisses us timorous and discontented; whereas obstinacy and +temerity fill those who are possessed with them with joy and assurance. +'Tis for the most ignorant to look at other men over the shoulder, always +returning from the combat full of joy and triumph. And moreover, for the +most part, this arrogance of speech and gaiety of countenance gives them +the better of it in the opinion of the audience, which is commonly weak +and incapable of well judging and discerning the real advantage. +Obstinacy of opinion and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly; +is there anything so assured, resolute, disdainful, contemplative, +serious and grave as the ass? + +May we not include under the title of conference and communication the +quick and sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst +friends, pleasantly and wittily jesting and rallying with one another? +'Tis an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, and +which, if it be not so tense and serious as the other I spoke of but now, +is, as Lycurgus thought, no less smart and ingenious, nor of less +utility. For my part, I contribute to it more liberty than wit, and have +therein more of luck than invention; but I am perfect in suffering, for I +endure a retaliation that is not only tart, but indiscreet to boot, +without being moved at all; and whoever attacks me, if I have not a brisk +answer immediately ready, I do not study to pursue the point with a +tedious and impertinent contest, bordering upon obstinacy, but let it +pass, and hanging down cheerfully my ears, defer my revenge to another +and better time: there is no merchant that always gains: Most men change +their countenance and their voice where their wits fail, and by an +unseasonable anger, instead of revenging themselves, accuse at once their +own folly and impatience. In this jollity, we sometimes pinch the secret +strings of our imperfections which, at another and graver time, we cannot +touch without offence, and so profitably give one another a hint of our +defects. There are other jeux de main,--[practical jokes]-- rude and +indiscreet, after the French manner, that I mortally hate; my skin is +very tender and sensible: I have in my time seen two princes of the blood +buried upon that very account. 'Tis unhandsome to fight in play. As to +the rest, when I have a mind to judge of any one, I ask him how far he is +contented with himself; to what degree his speaking or his work pleases +him. I will none of these fine excuses, "I did it only in sport: + + 'Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud.' + + ["That work was taken from the anvil half finished." + --Ovid, Trist., i. 6, 29.] + +I was not an hour about it: I have never looked at it since." Well, +then, say I, lay these aside, and give me a perfect one, such as you +would be measured by. And then, what do you think is the best thing in +your work? is it this part or that? is it grace or the matter, the +invention, the judgment, or the learning? For I find that men are, +commonly, as wide of the mark in judging of their own works, as of those +of others; not only by reason of the kindness they have for them, but for +want of capacity to know and distinguish them: the work, by its own force +and fortune, may second the workman, and sometimes outstrip him, beyond +his invention and knowledge. For my part, I judge of the value of other +men's works more obscurely than of my own; and place the Essays, now +high, or low, with great doubt and inconstancy. There are several books +that are useful upon the account of their subjects, from which the author +derives no praise; and good books, as well as good works, that shame the +workman. I may write the manner of our feasts, and the fashion of our +clothes, and may write them ill; I may publish the edicts of my time, and +the letters of princes that pass from hand to hand; I may make an +abridgment of a good book (and every abridgment of a good book is a +foolish abridgment), which book shall come to be lost; and so on: +posterity will derive a singular utility from such compositions: but what +honour shall I have unless by great good fortune? Most part of the +famous books are of this condition. + +When I read Philip de Commines, doubtless a very good author, several +years ago, I there took notice of this for no vulgar saying, "That a man +must have a care not to do his master so great service, that at last he +will not know how to give him his just reward"; but I ought to commend +the invention, not him, because I met with it in Tacitus, not long since: + + "Beneficia ea usque lxta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse; + ubi multum antevenere, pro gratis odium redditur;" + + ["Benefits are so far acceptable as they appear to be capable of + recompense; where they much exceed that point, hatred is returned + instead of thanks."--Tacitus, Annal., iv. 18.] + +and Seneca vigorously says: + + "Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, + non vult esse cui reddat:" + + ["For he who thinks it a shame not to requite, does not wish to + have the man live to whom he owes return."--Seneca, Ep., 81.] + +Q. Cicero says with less directness.: + + "Qui se non putat satisfacere, + amicus esse nullo modo potest." + + ["Who thinks himself behind in obligation, can by no + means be a friend."--Q. Cicero, De Petitione Consul, c. 9.] + +The subject, according to what it is, may make a man looked upon as +learned and of good memory; but to judge in him the parts that are most +his own and the most worthy, the vigour and beauty of his soul, one must +first know what is his own and what is not; and in that which is not his +own, how much we are obliged to him for the choice, disposition, +ornament, and language he has there presented us with. What if he has +borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it often falls out? We, who +are little read in books, are in this strait, that when we meet with a +high fancy in some new poet, or some strong argument in a preacher, we +dare not, nevertheless, commend it till we have first informed ourselves, +through some learned man, if it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some +other; until that I always stand upon my guard. + +I have lately been reading the history of Tacitus quite through, without +interrupting it with anything else (which but seldom happens with me, it +being twenty years since I have kept to any one book an hour together), +and I did it at the instance of a gentleman for whom France has a great +esteem, as well for his own particular worth, as upon the account of a +constant form of capacity and virtue which runs through a great many +brothers of them. I do not know any author in a public narrative who +mixes so much consideration of manners and particular inclinations: and I +am of a quite contrary opinion to him, holding that, having especially to +follow the lives of the emperors of his time, so various and extreme in +all sorts of forms, so many notable actions as their cruelty especially +produced in their subjects, he had a stronger and more attractive matter +to treat of than if he had had to describe battles and universal +commotions; so that I often find him sterile, running over those brave +deaths as if he feared to trouble us with their multitude and length. +This form of history is by much the most useful; public movements depend +most upon the conduct of fortune, private ones upon our own. 'Tis rather +a judgment than a narration of history; there are in it more precepts +than stories: it is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn; +'tis full of sententious opinions, right or wrong; 'tis a nursery of +ethic and politic discourses, for the use and ornament of those who have +any place in the government of the world. He always argues by strong and +solid reasons, after a pointed and subtle manner, according to the +affected style of that age, which was so in love with an inflated manner, +that where point and subtlety were wanting in things it supplied these +with lofty and swelling words. 'Tis not much unlike the style of Seneca: +I look upon Tacitus as more sinewy, and Seneca as more sharp. His pen +seems most proper for a troubled and sick state, as ours at present is; +you would often say that he paints and pinches us. + +They who doubt his good faith sufficiently accuse themselves of being his +enemy upon some other account. His opinions are sound, and lean to the +right side in the Roman affairs. And yet I am angry at him for judging +more severely of Pompey than consists with the opinion of those worthy +men who lived in the same time, and had dealings with him; and to have +reputed him on a par with Marius and Sylla, excepting that he was more +close. Other writers have not acquitted his intention in the government +of affairs from ambition and revenge; and even his friends were afraid +that victory would have transported him beyond the bounds of reason, but +not to so immeasurable a degree as theirs; nothing in his life threatened +such express cruelty and tyranny. Neither ought we to set suspicion +against evidence; and therefore I do not believe Plutarch in this matter. +That his narrations were genuine and straightforward may, perhaps, be +argued from this very thing, that they do not always apply to the +conclusions of his judgments, which he follows according to the bias he +has taken, very often beyond the matter he presents us withal, which he +has not deigned to alter in the least degree. He needs no excuse for +having approved the religion of his time, according as the laws enjoined, +and to have been ignorant of the true; this was his misfortune, not his +fault. + +I have principally considered his judgment, and am not very well +satisfied therewith throughout; as these words in the letter that +Tiberius, old and sick, sent to the senate. "What shall I write to you, +sirs, or how should I write to you, or what should I not write to you at +this time? May the gods and goddesses lay a worse punishment upon me +than I am every day tormented with, if I know!" I do not see why he +should so positively apply them to a sharp remorse that tormented the +conscience of Tiberius; at least, when I was in the same condition, I +perceived no such thing. + +And this also seemed to me a little mean in him that, having to say that +he had borne an honourable office in Rome, he excuses himself that he +does not say it out of ostentation; this seems, I say, mean for such a +soul as his; for not to speak roundly of a man's self implies some want +of courage; a man of solid and lofty judgment, who judges soundly and +surely, makes use of his own example upon all occasions, as well as those +of others; and gives evidence as freely of himself as of a third person. +We are to pass by these common rules of civility, in favour of truth and +liberty. I dare not only speak of myself, but to speak only of myself: +when I write of anything else, I miss my way and wander from my subject. +I am not so indiscreetly enamoured of myself, so wholly mixed up with, +and bound to myself, that I cannot distinguish and consider myself apart, +as I do a neighbour or a tree: 'tis equally a fault not to discern how +far a man's worth extends, and to say more than a man discovers in +himself. We owe more love to God than to ourselves, and know Him less; +and yet speak of Him as much as we will. + +If the writings of Tacitus indicate anything true of his qualities, he +was a great personage, upright and bold, not of a superstitious but of a +philosophical and generous virtue. One may think him bold in his +relations; as where he tells us, that a soldier carrying a burden of +wood, his hands were so frozen and so stuck to the load that they there +remained closed and dead, being severed from his arms. I always in such +things bow to the authority of so great witnesses. + +What also he says, that Vespasian, by the favour of the god Serapis, +cured a blind woman at Alexandria by anointing her eyes with his spittle, +and I know not what other miracle," he says by the example and duty of +all his good historians. They record all events of importance; and +amongst public incidents are the popular rumours and opinions. 'Tis +their part to relate common beliefs, not to regulate them: that part +concerns divines and philosophers, directors of consciences; and +therefore it was that this companion of his, and a great man like +himself, very wisely said: + + "Equidem plura transcribo, quam credo: nam nec affirmare + sustineo, de quibus dubito, nec subducere quae accepi;" + + ["Truly, I set down more things than I believe, for I can neither + affirm things whereof I doubt, nor suppress what I have heard." + --"Quintus Curtius, ix.] + +and this other: + + "Haec neque affirmare neque refellere operae + pretium est; famae rerum standum est." + + ['Tis neither worth the while to affirm or to refute these things; + we must stand to report"--Livy, i., Praef., and viii. 6.] + +And writing in an age wherein the belief of prodigies began to decline, +he says he would not, nevertheless, forbear to insert in his Annals, and +to give a relation of things received by so many worthy men, and with so +great reverence of antiquity; 'tis very well said. Let them deliver to +us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it. I, who am +monarch of the matter whereof I treat, and who am accountable to none, do +not, nevertheless, always believe myself; I often hazard sallies of my +own wit, wherein I very much suspect myself, and certain verbal quibbles, +at which I shake my ears; but I let them go at a venture. I see that +others get reputation by such things: 'tis not for me alone to judge. I +present myself standing and lying, before and behind, my right side and +my left, and, in all my natural postures. Wits, though equal in force, +are not always equal in taste and application. + +This is what my memory presents to me in gross, and with uncertainty +enough; all judgments in gross are weak and imperfect. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A hundred more escape us than ever come to our knowledge +A man must have courage to fear +A man never speaks of himself without loss +A man's accusations of himself are always believed +Agitation has usurped the place of reason +All judgments in gross are weak and imperfect +Any argument if it be carried on with method +Apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand +Arrogant ignorance +Avoid all magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten +Being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded +Defer my revenge to another and better time +Desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled +Detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us +Disdainful, contemplative, serious and grave as the ass +Do not, nevertheless, always believe myself +Events are a very poor testimony of our worth and parts. +Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment +Fault not to discern how far a man's worth extends +Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition +Folly satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be +Folly than to be moved and angry at the follies of the world +Give us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it +I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish +I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it +I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed +I love stout expressions amongst gentle men +I was too frightened to be ill +If it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some other +Ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it. +It is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn +"It was what I was about to say; it was just my idea," +Judge by justice, and choose men by reason +Knock you down with the authority of their experience +Learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds +Liberality at the expense of others +Malice must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance +Man must have a care not to do his master so great service +Mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations +Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency +My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners +My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are +Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd +New World: sold it opinions and our arts at a very dear rate +Obstinancy and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly +One must first know what is his own and what is not +Our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation +Passion has already confounded his judgment +Pinch the secret strings of our imperfections +Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play +Presumptive knowledge by silence +Silent mien procured the credit of prudence and capacity +Spectators can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure +Study of books is a languishing and feeble motion +The cause of truth ought to be the common cause +The event often justifies a very foolish conduct +The ignorant return from the combat full of joy and triumph +The very name Liberality sounds of Liberty. +There are some upon whom their rich clothes weep +There is no merchant that always gains +There is nothing single and rare in respect of nature +They have heard, they have seen, they have done so and so +They have not the courage to suffer themselves to be corrected +Tis impossible to deal fairly with a fool +To fret and vex at folly, as I do, is folly itself +Transferring of money from the right owners to strangers +Tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we meet +Tyrannic sourness not to endure a form contrary to one's own +Universal judgments that I see so common, signify nothing +"What he laughed at, being alone?"--"That I do laugh alone," +We are not to judge of counsels by events +We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him +We neither see far forward nor far backward +Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some great thing +Who has once been a very fool, will never after be very wise +Wide of the mark in judging of their own works +Wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V16 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn16v10.zip b/old/mn16v10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..285f2a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn16v10.zip diff --git a/old/mn16v11.txt b/old/mn16v11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b9e435 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn16v11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2430 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V16 +#16 in our series by Michel de Montaigne, Translator: Cotton +Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, 1877 + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! 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Of the Art of Conference. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +OF COACHES + +It is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they write of causes, +not only make use of those they think to be the true causes, but also of +those they believe not to be so, provided they have in them some beauty +and invention: they speak true and usefully enough, if it be ingeniously. +We cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and therefore crowd a +great many together, to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them: + + "Namque unam dicere causam + Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tamen sit." + + [Lucretius, vi. 704.--The sense is in the preceding passage.] + +Do you ask me, whence comes the custom of blessing those who sneeze? +We break wind three several ways; that which sallies from below is too +filthy; that which breaks out from the mouth carries with it some +reproach of gluttony; the third is sneezing, which, because it proceeds +from the head and is without offence, we give it this civil reception: do +not laugh at this distinction; they say 'tis Aristotle's. + +I think I have seen in Plutarch' (who of all the authors I know, is he +who has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with knowledge), his +giving as a reason for the, rising of the stomach in those who are at +sea, that it is occasioned by fear; having first found out some reason by +which he proves that fear may produce such an effect. I, who am very +subject to it, know well that this cause concerns not me; and I know it, +not by argument, but by necessary experience. Without instancing what +has been told me, that the same thing often happens in beasts, especially +hogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger; and what an acquaintance +of mine told me of himself, that though very subject to it, the +disposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him, being very +afraid in a violent storm, as it happened to that ancient: + + "Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;" + + ["I was too ill to think of danger." (Or the reverse:) + "I was too frightened to be ill."--Seneca, Ep., 53. 2] + +I was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and I +have had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death be +one), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment. Fear springs sometimes +as much from want of judgment as from want of courage. All the dangers I +have been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, sound, and +entire sight; and, indeed, a man must have courage to fear. It formerly +served me better than other help, so to order and regulate my retreat, +that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless without affright and +astonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupefied. +Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, not only +steady and temperate, but moreover lofty. Let us make a relation of that +which Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in arms: "I found him," +says he, "after the rout of our army, him and Lachez, last among those +who fled, and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I was +mounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as he had fought. I took +notice, in the first place, how much judgment and resolution he showed, +in comparison of Lachez, and then the bravery of his march, nothing +different from his ordinary gait; his sight firm and regular, considering +and judging what passed about him, looking one while upon those, and then +upon others, friends and enemies, after such a manner as encouraged +those, and signified to the others that he would sell his life dear to +any one who should attempt to take it from him, and so they came off; for +people are not willing to attack such kind of men, but pursue those they +see are in a fright." That is the testimony of this great captain, which +teaches us, what we every day experience, that nothing so much throws us +into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness of getting ourselves clear of +them: + + "Quo timoris minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est." + + ["When there is least fear, there is for the most part least + danger."--Livy, xxii. 5.] + +Our people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death, when +they would express that he thinks of it and foresees it: foresight is +equally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or ill. To consider +and judge of danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being astounded. +I do not find myself strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity +of this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever: if I +was once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never rise again very +sound. Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never +set her upright again: she retastes and researches herself too +profoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never let the +wound she had received heal and cicatrise. It has been well for me that +no sickness has yet discomposed her: at every charge made upon me, I +preserve my utmost opposition and defence; by which means the first that +should rout me would keep me from ever rallying again. I have no after- +game to play: on which side soever the inundation breaks my banks, I lie +open, and am drowned without remedy. Epicurus says, that a wise man can +never become a fool; I have an opinion reverse to this sentence, which +is, that he who has once been a very fool, will never after be very wise. +God grants me cold according to my cloth, and passions proportionable to +the means I have to withstand them: nature having laid me open on the one +side, has covered me on the other; having disarmed me of strength, she +has armed me with insensibility and an apprehension that is regular, or, +if you will, dull. + +I cannot now long endure (and when I was young could much less) either +coach, litter, or boat, and hate all other riding but on horseback, both +in town and country. But I can bear a litter worse than a coach; and, by +the same reason, a rough agitation upon the water, whence fear is +produced, better than the motions of a calm. At the little jerks of +oars, stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I know not how, both my +head and my stomach disordered; neither-can I endure to sit upon a +tottering chair. When the sail or the current carries us equally, or +that we are towed, the equal agitation does not disturb me at all; 'tis +an interrupted motion that offends me, and most of all when most slow: I +cannot otherwise express it. The physicians have ordered me to squeeze +and gird myself about the bottom of the belly with a napkin to remedy +this evil; which however I have not tried, being accustomed to wrestle +with my own defects, and overcome them myself. + +Would my memory serve me, I should not think my time ill spent in setting +down here the infinite variety that history presents us of the use of +chariots in the service of war: various, according to the nations and +according to the age; in my opinion, of great necessity and effect; so +that it is a wonder that we have lost all knowledge of them. I will only +say this, that very lately, in our fathers' time, the Hungarians made +very advantageous use of them against the Turks; having in every one of +them a targetter and a musketeer, and a number of harquebuses piled ready +and loaded, and all covered with a pavesade like a galliot--[Canvas +spread along the side of a ship of war, in action to screen the movements +of those on board.]--They formed the front of their battle with three +thousand such coaches, and after the cannon had played, made them all +pour in their shot upon the enemy, who had to swallow that volley before +they tasted of the rest, which was no little advance; and that done, +these chariots charged into their squadrons to break them and open a way +for the rest; besides the use they might make of them to flank the +soldiers in a place of danger when marching to the field, or to cover a +post, and fortify it in haste. In my time, a gentleman on one of our +frontiers, unwieldy of body, and finding no horse able to carry his +weight, having a quarrel, rode through the country in a chariot of this +fashion, and found great convenience in it. But let us leave these +chariots of war. + +As if their effeminacy--[Which Cotton translates: "as if the +insignificancy of coaches." ]--had not been sufficiently known by better +proofs, the last kings of our first race travelled in a chariot drawn by +four oxen. Marc Antony was the first at Rome who caused himself to be +drawn in a coach by lions, and a singing wench with him. + + [Cytheris, the Roman courtezan.--Plutarch's Life of Antony, c. 3. + This, was the same person who is introduced by Gallus under the name + of Lycoris. Gallus doubtless knew her personally.] + +Heliogabalus did since as much, calling himself Cybele, the mother of the +gods; and also drawn by tigers, taking upon him the person of the god +Bacchus; he also sometimes harnessed two stags to his coach, another time +four dogs, and another four naked wenches, causing himself to be drawn by +them in pomp, stark naked too. The Emperor Firmus caused his chariot to +be drawn by ostriches of a prodigious size, so that it seemed rather to +fly than roll. + +The strangeness of these inventions puts this other fancy in my head: +that it is a kind of pusillanimity in monarchs, and a testimony that they +do not sufficiently understand themselves what they are, when they study +to make themselves honoured and to appear great by excessive expense: it +were indeed excusable in a foreign country, but amongst their own +subjects, where they are in sovereign command, and may do what they +please, it derogates from their dignity the most supreme degree of honour +to which they can arrive: just as, methinks, it is superfluous in a +private gentleman to go finely dressed at home; his house, his +attendants, and his kitchen sufficiently answer for him. The advice that +Isocrates gives his king seems to be grounded upon reason: that he should +be splendid in plate and furniture; forasmuch as it is an expense of +duration that devolves on his successors; and that he should avoid all +magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten. I loved to go fine +when I was a younger brother, for want of other ornament; and it became +me well: there are some upon whom their rich clothes weep: We have +strange stories of the frugality of our kings about their own persons and +in their gifts: kings who were great in reputation, valour, and fortune. +Demosthenes vehemently opposes the law of his city that assigned the +public money for the pomp of their public plays and festivals: he would +that their greatness should be seen in numbers of ships well equipped, +and good armies well provided for; and there is good reason to condemn +Theophrastus, who, in his Book on Riches, establishes a contrary opinion, +and maintains that sort of expense to be the true fruit of abundance. +They are delights, says Aristotle, that a only please the baser sort of +the people, and that vanish from the memory as soon as the people are +sated with them, and for which no serious and judicious man can have any +esteem. This money would, in my opinion, be much more royally, as more +profitably, justly, and durably, laid out in ports, havens, walls, and +fortifications; in sumptuous buildings, churches, hospitals, colleges, +the reforming of streets and highways: wherein Pope Gregory XIII. will +leave a laudable memory to future times: and wherein our Queen Catherine +would to long posterity manifest her natural liberality and munificence, +did her means supply her affection. Fortune has done me a great despite +in interrupting the noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great city, +and depriving me of the hope of seeing it finished before I die. + +Moreover, it seems to subjects, who are spectators of these triumphs, +that their own riches are exposed before them, and that they are +entertained at their own expense: for the people are apt to presume of +kings, as we do of our servants, that they are to take care to provide us +all things necessary in abundance, but not touch it themselves; and +therefore the Emperor Galba, being pleased with a musician who played to +him at supper, called for his money-box, and gave him a handful of crowns +that he took out of it, with these words: "This is not the public money, +but my own." Yet it so falls out that the people, for the most part, +have reason on their side, and that the princes feed their eyes with what +they have need of to fill their bellies. + +Liberality itself is not in its true lustre in a sovereign hand: private +men have therein the most right; for, to take it exactly, a king has +nothing properly his own; he owes himself to others: authority is not +given in favour of the magistrate, but of the people; a superior is never +made so for his own profit, but for the profit of the inferior, and a +physician for the sick person, and not for himself: all magistracy, as +well as all art, has its end out of itself wherefore the tutors of young +princes, who make it their business to imprint in them this virtue of +liberality, and preach to them to deny nothing and to think nothing so +well spent as what they give (a doctrine that I have known in great +credit in my time), either have more particular regard to their own +profit than to that of their master, or ill understand to whom they +speak. It is too easy a thing to inculcate liberality on him who has as +much as he will to practise it with at the expense of others; and, the +estimate not being proportioned to the measure of the gift but to the +measure of the means of him who gives it, it comes to nothing in so +mighty hands; they find themselves prodigal before they can be reputed +liberal. And it is but a little recommendation, in comparison with other +royal virtues: and the only one, as the tyrant Dionysius said, that suits +well with tyranny itself. I should rather teach him this verse of the +ancient labourer: + + ["That whoever will have a good crop must sow with his hand, and not + pour out of the sack."--Plutarch, Apothegms, Whether the Ancients + were more excellent in Arms than in Learning.] + +he must scatter it abroad, and not lay it on a heap in one place: and +that, seeing he is to give, or, to say better, to pay and restore to so +many people according as they have deserved, he ought to be a loyal and +discreet disposer. If the liberality of a prince be without measure or +discretion, I had rather he were covetous. + +Royal virtue seems most to consist in justice; and of all the parts of +justice that best denotes a king which accompanies liberality, for this +they have particularly reserved to be performed by themselves, whereas +all other sorts of justice they remit to the administration of others. +An immoderate bounty is a very weak means to acquire for them good will; +it checks more people than it allures: + + "Quo in plures usus sis, minus in multos uti possis.... + Quid autem est stultius, quam, quod libenter facias, + curare ut id diutius facere non possis;" + + ["By how much more you use it to many, by so much less will you be + in a capacity to use it to many more. And what greater folly can + there be than to order it so that what you would willingly do, you + cannot do longer."--Cicero, De Offic., ii. 15.] + +and if it be conferred without due respect of merit, it puts him out of +countenance who receives it, and is received ungraciously. Tyrants have +been sacrificed to the hatred of the people by the hands of those very +men they have unjustly advanced; such kind of men as buffoons, panders, +fiddlers, and such ragamuffins, thinking to assure to themselves the +possession of benefits unduly received, if they manifest to have him in +hatred and disdain of whom they hold them, and in this associate +themselves to the common judgment and opinion. + +The subjects of a prince excessive in gifts grow excessive in asking, +and regulate their demands, not by reason, but by example. We have, +seriously, very often reason to blush at our own impudence: we are over- +paid, according to justice, when the recompense equals our service; for +do we owe nothing of natural obligation to our princes? If he bear our +charges, he does too much; 'tis enough that he contribute to them: the +overplus is called benefit, which cannot be exacted: for the very name +Liberality sounds of Liberty. + +In our fashion it is never done; we never reckon what we have received; +we are only for the future liberality; wherefore, the more a prince +exhausts himself in giving, the poorer he grows in friends. How should +he satisfy immoderate desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled? +He who has his thoughts upon taking, never thinks of what he has taken; +covetousness has nothing so properly and so much its own as ingratitude. + +The example of Cyrus will not do amiss in this place, to serve the kings +of these times for a touchstone to know whether their gifts are well or +ill bestowed, and to see how much better that emperor conferred them than +they do, by which means they are reduced to borrow of unknown subjects, +and rather of them whom they have wronged than of them on whom they have +conferred their benefits, and so receive aids wherein there is nothing of +gratuitous but the name. Croesus reproached him with his bounty, and +cast up to how much his treasure would amount if he had been a little +closer-handed. He had a mind to justify his liberality, and therefore +sent despatches into all parts to the grandees of his dominions whom he +had particularly advanced, entreating every one of them to supply him +with as much money as they could, for a pressing occasion, and to send +him particulars of what each could advance. When all these answers were +brought to him, every one of his friends, not thinking it enough barely +to offer him so much as he had received from his bounty, and adding to it +a great deal of his own, it appeared that the sum amounted to a great +deal more than Croesus' reckoning. Whereupon Cyrus: "I am not," said he, +"less in love with riches than other princes, but rather a better +husband; you see with how small a venture I have acquired the inestimable +treasure of so many friends, and how much more faithful treasurers they +are to me than mercenary men without obligation, without affection; and +my money better laid up than in chests, bringing upon me the hatred, +envy, and contempt of other princes." + +The emperors excused the superfluity of their plays and public spectacles +by reason that their authority in some sort (at least in outward +appearance) depended upon the will of the people of Rome, who, time out +of mind, had been accustomed to be entertained and caressed with such +shows and excesses. But they were private citizens, who had nourished +this custom to gratify their fellow-citizens and companions (and chiefly +out of their own purses) by such profusion and magnificence it had quite +another taste when the masters came to imitate it: + + "Pecuniarum translatio a justis dominis ad alienos + non debet liberalis videri." + + ["The transferring of money from the right owners to strangers + ought not to have the title of liberality." + --Cicero, De Offic., i. 14.] + +Philip, seeing that his son went about by presents to gain the affection +of the Macedonians, reprimanded him in a letter after this manner: "What! +hast thou a mind that thy subjects shall look upon thee as their cash- +keeper and not as their king? Wilt thou tamper with them to win their +affections? Do it, then, by the benefits of thy virtue, and not by those +of thy chest." And yet it was, doubtless, a fine thing to bring and +plant within the amphitheatre a great number of vast trees, with all +their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest, +disposed in excellent order; and, the first day, to throw into it a +thousand ostriches and a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand +fallow-deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people: the next day, +to cause a hundred great lions, a hundred leopards, and three hundred +bears to be killed in his presence; and for the third day, to make three +hundred pair of gladiators fight it out to the last, as the Emperor +Probus did. It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all +faced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, +and within glittering with rare enrichments: + + "Baltheus en! gemmis, en illita porticus auro:" + + ["A belt glittering with jewels, and a portico overlaid with gold." + --Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 47. A baltheus was a shoulder-belt or + baldric.] + +all the sides of this vast space filled and environed, from the bottom to +the top, with three or four score rows of seats, all of marble also, and +covered with cushions: + + "Exeat, inquit, + Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri, + Cujus res legi non sufficit;" + + ["Let him go out, he said, if he has any sense of shame, and rise + from the equestrian cushion, whose estate does not satisfy the law." + --Juvenal, iii. 153. The Equites were required to possess a fortune + of 400 sestertia, and they sat on the first fourteen rows behind the + orchestra.] + +where a hundred thousand men might sit at their ease: and, the place +below, where the games were played, to make it, by art, first open and +cleave in chasms, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed +for the spectacle; and then, secondly, to be overflowed by a deep sea, +full of sea monsters, and laden with ships of war, to represent a naval +battle; and, thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combat of the +gladiators; and, for the fourth scene, to have it strown with vermilion +grain and storax,--[A resinous gum.]--instead of sand, there to make a +solemn feast for all that infinite number of people: the last act of one +only day: + + "Quoties nos descendentis arenae + Vidimus in partes, ruptaque voragine terrae + Emersisse feras, et eisdem saepe latebris + Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro!.... + Nec solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra + Contigit; aequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis + Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum, + Sen deforme pecus, quod in illo nascitur amni...." + + ["How often have we seen the stage of the theatre descend and part + asunder, and from a chasm in the earth wild beasts emerge, and then + presently give birth to a grove of gilded trees, that put forth + blossoms of enamelled flowers. Nor yet of sylvan marvels alone had + we sight: I saw sea-calves fight with bears, and a deformed sort of + cattle, we might call sea-horses."--Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 64.] + +Sometimes they made a high mountain advance itself, covered with fruit- +trees and other leafy trees, sending down rivulets of water from the top, +as from the mouth of a fountain: otherwhiles, a great ship was seen to +come rolling in, which opened and divided of itself, and after having +disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, closed +again, and vanished without help. At other times, from the floor of this +place, they made spouts of perfumed water dart their streams upward, and +so high as to sprinkle all that infinite multitude. To defend themselves +from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast place one while +covered over with purple curtains of needlework, and by-and-by with silk +of one or another colour, which they drew off or on in a moment, as they +had a mind: + + "Quamvis non modico caleant spectacula sole, + Vela reducuntur, cum venit Hermogenes." + + ["The curtains, though the sun should scorch the spectators, are + drawn in, when Hermogenes appears."-Martial, xii. 29, 15. M. + Tigellius Hermogenes, whom Horace and others have satirised. One + editor calls him "a noted thief," another: "He was a literary + amateur of no ability, who expressed his critical opinions with too + great a freedom to please the poets of his day." D.W.] + +The network also that was set before the people to defend them from the +violence of these turned-out beasts was woven of gold: + + "Auro quoque torts refulgent + Retia." + + ["The woven nets are refulgent with gold." + --Calpurnius, ubi supra.] + +If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these, it is where the +novelty and invention create more wonder than the expense; even in these +vanities we discover how fertile those ages were in other kind of wits +than these of ours. It is with this sort of fertility, as with all other +products of nature: not that she there and then employed her utmost +force: we do not go; we rather run up and down, and whirl this way and +that; we turn back the way we came. I am afraid our knowledge is weak in +all senses; we neither see far forward nor far backward; our +understanding comprehends little, and lives but a little while; 'tis +short both in extent of time and extent of matter: + + "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona + Mufti, sed omnes illacrymabiles + Urgentur, ignotique longs + Nocte." + + [ Many brave men lived before Agamemnon, but all are pressed by the + long night unmourned and unknown."--Horace, Od., iv. 9, 25.] + + "Et supra bellum Thebanum et funera Trojae + Non alias alii quoque res cecinere poetae?" + + ["Why before the Theban war and the destruction of Troy, have not + other poets sung other events?"--Lucretius, v. 327. Montaigne here + diverts himself m giving Lucretius' words a construction directly + contrary to what they bear in the poem. Lucretius puts the + question, Why if the earth had existed from all eternity, there had + not been poets, before the Theban war, to sing men's exploits. + --Coste.] + +And the narrative of Solon, of what he had learned from the Egyptian +priests, touching the long life of their state, and their manner of +learning and preserving foreign histories, is not, methinks, a testimony +to be refused in this consideration: + + "Si interminatam in omnes partes magnitudinem regionum videremus et + temporum, in quam se injiciens animus et intendens, ita late + longeque peregrinatur, ut nullam oram ultimi videat, in qua possit + insistere: in haec immensitate . . . infinita vis innumerabilium + appareret fomorum." + + ["Could we see on all parts the unlimited magnitude of regions and + of times, upon which the mind being intent, could wander so far and + wide, that no limit is to be seen, in which it can bound its eye, we + should, in that infinite immensity, discover an infinite force of + innumerable atoms." Here also Montaigne puts a sense quite + different from what the words bear in the original; but the + application he makes of them is so happy that one would declare they + were actually put together only to express his own sentiments. "Et + temporum" is an addition by Montaigne.--Coste.] + +Though all that has arrived, by report, of our knowledge of times past +should be true, and known by some one person, it would be less than +nothing in comparison of what is unknown. And of this same image of the +world, which glides away whilst we live upon it, how wretched and limited +is the knowledge of the most curious; not only of particular events, +which fortune often renders exemplary and of great concern, but of the +state of great governments and nations, a hundred more escape us than +ever come to our knowledge. We make a mighty business of the invention +of artillery and printing, which other men at the other end of the world, +in China, had a thousand years ago. Did we but see as much of the world +as we do not see, we should perceive, we may well believe, a perpetual +multiplication and vicissitude of forms. There is nothing single and +rare in respect of nature, but in respect of our knowledge, which is a +wretched foundation whereon to ground our rules, and that represents to +us a very false image of things. As we nowadays vainly conclude the +declension and decrepitude of the world, by the arguments we extract from +our own weakness and decay: + + "Jamque adeo est affecta aetas effoet aque tellus;" + + ["Our age is feeble, and the earth less fertile." + --Lucretius, ii. 1151.] + +so did he vainly conclude as to its birth and youth, by the vigour he +observed in the wits of his time, abounding in novelties and the +invention of divers arts: + + "Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa, recensque + Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia coepit + Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur, + Nunc etiam augescunt; nunc addita navigiis sunt + Multa." + + ["But, as I am of opinion, the whole of the world is of recent + origin, nor had its commencement in remote times; wherefore it is + that some arts are still being refined, and some just on the + increase; at present many additions are being made to shipping." + --Lucretius, v. 331.] + +Our world has lately discovered another (and who will assure us that it +is the last of its brothers, since the Daemons, the Sybils, and we +ourselves have been ignorant of this till now?), as large, well-peopled, +and fruitful as this whereon we live and yet so raw and childish, that we +are still teaching it it's a B C: 'tis not above fifty years since it +knew neither letters, weights, measures, vestments, corn, nor vines: it +was then quite naked in the mother's lap, and only lived upon what she +gave it. If we rightly conclude of our end, and this poet of the +youthfulness of that age of his, that other world will only enter into +the light when this of ours shall make its exit; the universe will fall +into paralysis; one member will be useless, the other in vigour. I am +very much afraid that we have greatly precipitated its declension and +ruin by our contagion; and that we have sold it opinions and our arts at +a very dear rate. It was an infant world, and yet we have not whipped +and subjected it to our discipline by the advantage of our natural worth +and force, neither have we won it by our justice and goodness, nor +subdued it by our magnanimity. Most of their answers, and the +negotiations we have had with them, witness that they were nothing behind +us in pertinency and clearness of natural understanding. The astonishing +magnificence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, amongst many other +things, the garden of the king, where all the trees, fruits, and plants, +according to the order and stature they have in a garden, were +excellently formed in gold; as, in his cabinet, were all the animals bred +upon his territory and in its seas; and the beauty of their manufactures, +in jewels, feathers, cotton, and painting, gave ample proof that they +were as little inferior to us in industry. But as to what concerns +devotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liberality, loyalty, and +plain dealing, it was of use to us that we had not so much as they; for +they have lost, sold, and betrayed themselves by this advantage over us. + +As to boldness and courage, stability, constancy against pain, hunger, +and death, I should not fear to oppose the examples I find amongst them +to the most famous examples of elder times that we find in our records on +this side of the world. Far as to those who subdued them, take but away +the tricks and artifices they practised to gull them, and the just +astonishment it was to those nations to see so sudden and unexpected an +arrival of men with beards, differing in language, religion, shape, and +countenance, from so remote a part of the world, and where they had never +heard there was any habitation, mounted upon great unknown monsters, +against those who had not only never seen a horse, but had never seen any +other beast trained up to carry a man or any other loading; shelled in a +hard and shining skin, with a cutting and glittering weapon in his hand, +against them, who, out of wonder at the brightness of a looking glass or +a knife, would exchange great treasures of gold and pearl; and who had +neither knowledge, nor matter with which, at leisure, they could +penetrate our steel: to which may be added the lightning and thunder of +our cannon and harquebuses, enough to frighten Caesar himself, if +surprised, with so little experience, against people naked, except where +the invention of a little quilted cotton was in use, without other arms, +at the most, than bows, stones, staves, and bucklers of wood; people +surprised under colour of friendship and good faith, by the curiosity of +seeing strange and unknown things; take but away, I say, this disparity +from the conquerors, and you take away all the occasion of so many +victories. When I look upon that in vincible ardour wherewith so many +thousands of men, women, and children so often presented and threw +themselves into inevitable dangers for the defence of their gods and +liberties; that generous obstinacy to suffer all extremities and +difficulties, and death itself, rather than submit to the dominion of +those by whom they had been so shamefully abused; and some of them +choosing to die of hunger and fasting, being prisoners, rather than to +accept of nourishment from the hands of their so basely victorious +enemies: I see, that whoever would have attacked them upon equal terms of +arms, experience, and number, would have had a hard, and, peradventure, +a harder game to play than in any other war we have seen. + +Why did not so noble a conquest fall under Alexander, or the ancient +Greeks and Romans; and so great a revolution and mutation of so many +empires and nations, fall into hands that would have gently levelled, +rooted up, and made plain and smooth whatever was rough and savage +amongst them, and that would have cherished and propagated the good seeds +that nature had there produced; mixing not only with the culture of land +and the ornament of cities, the arts of this part of the world, in what +was necessary, but also the Greek and Roman virtues, with those that were +original of the country? What a reparation had it been to them, and what +a general good to the whole world, had our first examples and deportments +in those parts allured those people to the admiration and imitation of +virtue, and had begotten betwixt them and us a fraternal society and +intelligence? How easy had it been to have made advantage of souls so +innocent, and so eager to learn, leaving, for the most part, naturally so +good inclinations before? Whereas, on the contrary, we have taken +advantage of their ignorance and inexperience, with greater ease to +incline them to treachery, luxury, avarice, and towards all sorts of +inhumanity and cruelty, by the pattern and example of our manners. Who +ever enhanced the price of merchandise at such a rate? So many cities +levelled with the ground, so many nations exterminated, so many millions +of people fallen by the edge of the sword, and the richest and most +beautiful part of the world turned upside down, for the traffic of pearl +and pepper? Mechanic victories! Never did ambition, never did public +animosities, engage men against one another in such miserable +hostilities, in such miserable calamities. + +Certain Spaniards, coasting the sea in quest of their mines, landed in a +fruitful and pleasant and very well peopled country, and there made to +the inhabitants their accustomed professions: "that they were peaceable +men, who were come from a very remote country, and sent on the behalf of +the King of Castile, the greatest prince of the habitable world, to whom +the Pope, God's vicegerent upon earth, had given the principality of all +the Indies; that if they would become tributaries to him, they should be +very gently and courteously used"; at the same time requiring of them +victuals for their nourishment, and gold whereof to make some pretended +medicine; setting forth, moreover, the belief in one only God, and the +truth of our religion, which they advised them to embrace, whereunto they +also added some threats. To which they received this answer: "That as to +their being peaceable, they did not seem to be such, if they were so. +As to their king, since he was fain to beg, he must be necessitous and +poor; and he who had made him this gift, must be a man who loved +dissension, to give that to another which was none of his own, to bring +it into dispute against the ancient possessors. As to victuals, they +would supply them; that of gold they had little; it being a thing they +had in very small esteem, as of no use to the service of life, whereas +their only care was to pass it over happily and pleasantly: but that what +they could find excepting what was employed in the service of their gods, +they might freely take. As to one only God, the proposition had pleased +them well; but that they would not change their religion, both because +they had so long and happily lived in it, and that they were not wont to +take advice of any but their friends, and those they knew: as to their +menaces, it was a sign of want of judgment to threaten those whose nature +and power were to them unknown; that, therefore, they were to make haste +to quit their coast, for they were not used to take the civilities and +professions of armed men and strangers in good part; otherwise they +should do by them as they had done by those others," showing them the +heads of several executed men round the walls of their city. A fair +example of the babble of these children. But so it is, that the +Spaniards did not, either in this or in several other places, where they +did not find the merchandise they sought, make any stay or attempt, +whatever other conveniences were there to be had; witness my CANNIBALS.-- +[Chapter XXX. of Book I.] + +Of the two most puissant monarchs of that world, and, peradventure, of +this, kings of so many kings, and the last they turned out, he of Peru, +having been taken in a battle, and put to so excessive a ransom as +exceeds all belief, and it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his +conversation, given manifest signs of a frank, liberal, and constant +spirit, and of a clear and settled understanding, the conquerors had a +mind, after having exacted one million three hundred and twenty-five +thousand and five hundred weight of gold, besides silver, and other +things which amounted to no less (so that their horses were shod with +massy gold), still to see, at the price of what disloyalty and injustice +whatever, what the remainder of the treasures of this king might be, and +to possess themselves of that also. To this end a false accusation was +preferred against him, and false witnesses brought to prove that he went +about to raise an insurrection in his provinces, to procure his own +liberty; whereupon, by the virtuous sentence of those very men who had by +this treachery conspired his ruin, he was condemned to be publicly hanged +and strangled, after having made him buy off the torment of being burnt +alive, by the baptism they gave him immediately before execution; a +horrid and unheard of barbarity, which, nevertheless, he underwent +without giving way either in word or look, with a truly grave and royal +behaviour. After which, to calm and appease the people, aroused and +astounded at so strange a thing, they counterfeited great sorrow for his +death, and appointed most sumptuous funerals. + +The other king of Mexico,--[Guatimosin]--having for a long time defended +his beleaguered city, and having in this siege manifested the utmost of +what suffering and perseverance can do, if ever prince and people did, +and his misfortune having delivered him alive into his enemies' hands, +upon articles of being treated like a king, neither did he in his +captivity discover anything unworthy of that title. His enemies, after +their victory, not finding so much gold as they expected, when they had +searched and rifled with their utmost diligence, they went about to +procure discoveries by the most cruel torments they could invent upon the +prisoners they had taken: but having profited nothing by these, their +courage being greater than their torments, they arrived at last to such a +degree of fury, as, contrary to their faith and the law of nations, to +condemn the king himself, and one of the principal noblemen of his court, +to the rack, in the presence of one another. This lord, finding himself +overcome with pain, being environed with burning coals, pitifully turned +his dying eyes towards his master, as it were to ask him pardon that he +was able to endure no more; whereupon the king, darting at him a fierce +and severe look, as reproaching his cowardice and pusillanimity, with a +harsh and constant voice said to him thus only: "And what dost thou think +I suffer? am I in a bath? am I more at ease than thou?" Whereupon the +other immediately quailed under the torment and died upon the spot. The +king, half roasted, was carried thence; not so much out of pity (for what +compassion ever touched so barbarous souls, who, upon the doubtful +information of some vessel of gold to be made a prey of, caused not only +a man, but a king, so great in fortune and desert, to be broiled before +their eyes), but because his constancy rendered their cruelty still more +shameful. They afterwards hanged him for having nobly attempted to +deliver himself by arms from so long a captivity and subjection, and he +died with a courage becoming so magnanimous a prince. + +Another time, they burnt in the same fire four hundred and sixty men +alive at once, the four hundred of the common people, the sixty the +principal lords of a province, simply prisoners of war. We have these +narratives from themselves for they not only own it, but boast of it and +publish it. Could it be for a testimony of their justice or their zeal +to religion? Doubtless these are ways too differing and contrary to so +holy an end. Had they proposed to themselves to extend our faith, they +would have considered that it does not amplify in the possession of +territories, but in the gaining of men; and would have more than +satisfied themselves with the slaughters occasioned by the necessity of +war, without indifferently mixing a massacre, as upon wild beasts, as +universal as fire and sword could make it; having only, by intention, +saved so many as they meant to make miserable slaves of, for the work and +service of their mines; so that many of the captains were put to death +upon the place of conquest, by order of the kings of Castile, justly +offended with the horror of their deportment, and almost all of them +hated and disesteemed. God meritoriously permitted that all this great +plunder should be swallowed up by the sea in transportation, or in the +civil wars wherewith they devoured one another; and most of the men +themselves were buried in a foreign land without any fruit of their +victory. + +That the revenue from these countries, though in the hands of so +parsimonious and so prudent a prince,--[Phillip II.]--so little answers +the expectation given of it to his predecessors, and to that original +abundance of riches which was found at the first landing in those new +discovered countries (for though a great deal be fetched thence, yet we +see 'tis nothing in comparison of that which might be expected), is that +the use of coin was there utterly unknown, and that consequently their +gold was found all hoarded together, being of no other use but for +ornament and show, as a furniture reserved from father to son by many +puissant kings, who were ever draining their mines to make this vast heap +of vessels and statues for the decoration of their palaces and temples; +whereas our gold is always in motion and traffic; we cut it into a +thousand small pieces, and cast it into a thousand forms, and scatter and +disperse it in a thousand ways. But suppose our kings should thus hoard +up all the gold they could get in several ages and let it lie idle by +them. + +Those of the kingdom of Mexico were in some sort more civilised and more +advanced in arts than the other nations about them. Therefore did they +judge, as we do, that the world was near its period, and looked upon the +desolation we brought amongst them as a certain sign of it. They +believed that the existence of the world was divided into five ages, and +in the life of five successive suns, of which four had already ended +their time, and that this which gave them light was the fifth. The first +perished, with all other creatures, by an universal inundation of water; +the second by the heavens falling upon us and suffocating every living +thing to which age they assigned the giants, and showed bones to the +Spaniards, according to the proportion of which the stature of men +amounted to twenty feet; the third by fire, which burned and consumed +all; the fourth by an emotion of the air and wind, which came with such +violence as to beat down even many mountains, wherein the men died not, +but were turned into baboons. What impressions will not the weakness of +human belief admit? After the death of this fourth sun, the world was +twenty-five years in perpetual darkness: in the fifteenth of which a man +and a woman were created, who restored the human race: ten years after, +upon a certain day, the sun appeared newly created, and since the account +of their year takes beginning from that day: the third day after its +creation the ancient gods died, and the new ones were since born daily. +After what manner they think this last sun shall perish, my author knows +not; but their number of this fourth change agrees with the great +conjunction of stars which eight hundred and odd years ago, as +astrologers suppose, produced great alterations and novelties in the +world. + +As to pomp and magnificence, upon the account of which I engaged in this +discourse, neither Greece, Rome, nor Egypt, whether for utility, +difficulty, or state, can compare any of their works with the highway to +be seen in Peru, made by the kings of the country, from the city of Quito +to that of Cusco (three hundred leagues), straight, even, five-and-twenty +paces wide, paved, and provided on both sides with high and beautiful +walls; and close by them, and all along on the inside, two perennial +streams, bordered with beautiful plants, which they call moly. In this +work, where they met with rocks and mountains, they cut them through, and +made them even, and filled up pits and valleys with lime and stone to +make them level. At the end of every day's journey are beautiful +palaces, furnished with provisions, vestments, and arms, as well for +travellers as for the armies that are to pass that way. In the estimate +of this work I have reckoned the difficulty which is especially +considerable in that place; they did not build with any stones less than +ten feet square, and had no other conveniency of carriage but by drawing +their load themselves by force of arm, and knew not so much as the art of +scaffolding, nor any other way of standing to their work, but by throwing +up earth against the building as it rose higher, taking it away again +when they had done. + +Let us here return to our coaches. Instead of these, and of all other +sorts of carriages, they caused themselves to be carried upon men's +shoulders. This last king of Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus +carried betwixt two upon staves of gold, and set in a chair of gold in +the middle of his army. As many of these sedan-men as were killed to +make him fall (for they would take him alive), so many others (and they +contended for it) took the place of those who were slain, so that they +could never beat him down, what slaughter soever they made of these +people, till a horseman, seizing upon him, brought him to the ground. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS + +Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge our selves by railing at +it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its +defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how +much to be coveted soever. Greatness has, in general, this manifest +advantage, that it can lower itself when it pleases, and has, very near, +the choice of both the one and the other condition; for a man does not +fall from all heights; there are several from which one may descend +without falling down. It does, indeed, appear to me that we value it at +too high a rate, and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we have +either seen or heard have contemned it, or displaced themselves of their +own accord: its essence is not so evidently commodious that a man may +not, with out a miracle, refuse it. I find it a very hard thing to +undergo misfortunes, but to be content with a moderate measure of +fortune, and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy matter. 'Tis, +methinks, a virtue to which I, who am no conjuror, could without any +great endeavour arrive. What, then, is to be expected from them that +would yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal, +wherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself, +and fruition of greatness? Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself +better, according to itself, than when it proceeds by obscure and +unfrequented ways. + +I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as I can towards +desire. I have as much to wish for as another, and allow my wishes as +much liberty and indiscretion; but yet it never befell me to wish for +either empire or royalty, or the eminency of those high and commanding +fortunes: I do not aim that way; I love myself too well. When I think to +grow greater, 'tis but very moderately, and by a compelled and timorous +advancement, such as is proper for me in resolution, in prudence, in +health, in beauty, and even in riches too; but this supreme reputation, +this mighty authority, oppress my imagination; and, quite contrary to +that other,--[Julius Caesar.]--I should, peradventure, rather choose to +be the second or third in Perigord than the first at Paris at least, +without lying, rather the third at Paris than the first. I would neither +dispute with a porter, a miserable unknown, nor make crowds open in +adoration as I pass. I am trained up to a moderate condition, as well by +my choice as fortune; and have made it appear, in the whole conduct of my +life and enterprises, that I have rather avoided than otherwise the +climbing above the degree of fortune wherein God has placed me by my +birth; all natural constitution is equally just and easy. My soul is +such a poltroon, that I measure not good fortune by the height, but by +the facility. + +But if my heart be not great enough, 'tis open enough to make amends, at +any one's request, freely to lay open its weakness. Should any one put +me upon comparing the life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, handsome, +learned, healthful, understanding, and abounding in all sorts of +conveniences and pleasures, leading a quiet life, and all his own, his +mind well prepared against death, superstition, pain, and other +incumbrances of human necessity, dying, at last, in battle, with his +sword in his hand, for the defence of his country, on the one part; and +on the other part, the life of M. Regulus, so great and high as is known +to every one, and his end admirable; the one without name and without +dignity, the other exemplary and glorious to a wonder. I should +doubtless say, as Cicero did, could I speak as well as he. + + [Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 20, gives the preference to Regulus, and + proclaims him the happier man.] + +But if I was to compare them with my own, I should then also say that the +first is as much according to my capacity, and from desire, which I +conform to my capacity, as the second is far beyond it; that I could not +approach the last but with veneration, the other I could readily attain +by use. + +Let us return to our temporal greatness, from which we are digressed. I +disrelish all dominion, whether active or passive. Otanes, one of the +seven who had right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should +willingly have done, which was, that he gave up to his competitors his +right of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided +that he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and +subjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all +liberty that was not prejudicial to these, being as impatient of +commanding as of being commanded. + +The most painful and difficult employment in the world, in my opinion, is +worthily to discharge the office of a king. I excuse more of their +mistakes than men commonly do, in consideration of the intolerable weight +of their function, which astounds me. 'Tis hard to keep measure in so +immeasurable a power; yet so it is that it is, even to those who are not +of the best nature, a singular incitement to virtue to be seated in a +place where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon +record, and where the least benefit redounds to so many men, and where +your talent of administration, like that of preachers, principally +addresses itself to the people, no very exact judge, easy to deceive, and +easily content. There are few things wherein we can give a sincere +judgment, by reason that there are few wherein we have not, in some sort, +a private interest. Superiority and inferiority, dominion and subjection +are bound to a natural envy and contest, and must of necessity +perpetually intrench upon one another. I believe neither the one nor the +other touching the rights of the other party; let reason therefore, which +is inflexible and without passion, determine when we can avail ourselves +of it. 'Tis not above a month ago that I read over, two Scottish authors +contending upon this subject, of whom he who stands for the people makes +the king to be in a worse condition than a carter; he who writes for +monarchy places him some degrees above God in power and sovereignty. + +Now, the incommodity of greatness that I have taken to remark in this +place, upon some occasion that has lately put it into my head, is this: +there is not, peradventure, anything more pleasant in the commerce of +many than the trials that we make against one another, out of emulation +of honour and worth, whether in the exercises of the body or in those of +the mind, wherein sovereign greatness can have no true part. And, in +earnest, I have often thought that by force of respect itself men use +princes disdainfully and injuriously in that particular; for the thing I +was infinitely offended at in my childhood, that they who exercised with +me forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their +utmost endeavour, is what we see happen to them daily, every one finding +himself unworthy to contend with them. If we discover that they have the +least desire to get the better of us, there is no one who will not make +it his business to give it them, and who will not rather betray his own +glory than offend theirs; and will therein employ so much force only as +is necessary to save their honour. What share have they, then, in the +engagement, where every one is on their side? Methinks I see those +paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to jousts and battle with +enchanted arms and bodies. Brisson, + + [Plutarch, On Satisfaction or Tranquillity of the Mind. But in his + essay, How a Man may Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, he calls + him Chriso.] + +running against Alexander, purposely missed his blow, and made a fault in +his career; Alexander chid him for it, but he ought to have had him +whipped. Upon this consideration Carneades said, that "the sons of +princes learned nothing right but to manage horses; by reason that, in +all their other exercises, every one bends and yields to them; but a +horse, that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier, throws the son of a +king with no more ceremony than he would throw that of a porter." + +Homer was fain to consent that Venus, so sweet and delicate a goddess as +she was, should be wounded at the battle of Troy, thereby to ascribe +courage and boldness to her qualities that cannot possibly be in those +who are exempt from danger. The gods are made to be angry, to fear, to +run away, to be jealous, to grieve, to be transported with passions, to +honour them with the virtues that, amongst us, are built upon these +imperfections. Who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty, can +claim no interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents of +hazardous actions. 'Tis pity a man should be so potent that all things +must give way to him; fortune therein sets you too remote from society, +and places you in too great a solitude. This easiness and mean facility +of making all things bow under you, is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure: +'tis to slide, not to go; 'tis to sleep, and not to live. Conceive man +accompanied with omnipotence: you overwhelm him; he must beg disturbance +and opposition as an alms: his being and his good are in indigence. Evil +to man is in its turn good, and good evil. Neither is pain always to be +shunned, nor pleasure always to be pursued. + +Their good qualities are dead and lost; for they can only be perceived by +comparison, and we put them out of this: they have little knowledge of +true praise, having their ears deafened with so continual and uniform an +approbation. Have they to do with the stupidest of all their subjects? +they have no means to take any advantage of him; if he but say: "'Tis +because he is my king," he thinks he has said enough to express that he +therefore suffered himself to be overcome. This quality stifles and +consumes the other true and essential qualities: they are sunk in the +royalty, and leave them nothing to recommend themselves with but actions +that directly concern and serve the function of their place; 'tis so much +to be a king, that this alone remains to them. The outer glare that +environs him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there +repelled and dissipated, being filled and stopped by this prevailing +light. The senate awarded the prize of eloquence to Tiberius; he refused +it, esteeming that though it had been just, he could derive no advantage +from a judgment so partial, and that was so little free to judge. + +As we give them all advantages of honour, so do we soothe and authorise +all their vices and defects, not only by approbation, but by imitation +also. Every one of Alexander's followers carried his head on one side, +as he did; and the flatterers of Dionysius ran against one another in his +presence, and stumbled at and overturned whatever was under foot, to shew +they were as purblind as he. Hernia itself has also served to recommend +a man to favour; I have seen deafness affected; and because the master +hated his wife, Plutarch--[who, however, only gives one instance; and in +this he tells us that the man visited his wife privately.]--has seen his +courtiers repudiate theirs, whom they loved; and, which is yet more, +uncleanliness and all manner of dissoluteness have so been in fashion; as +also disloyalty, blasphemy, cruelty, heresy, superstition, irreligion, +effeminacy, and worse, if worse there be; and by an example yet more +dangerous than that of Mithridates' flatterers, who, as their master +pretended to the honour of a good physician, came to him to have +incisions and cauteries made in their limbs; for these others suffered +the soul, a more delicate and noble part, to be cauterised. + +But to end where I began: the Emperor Adrian, disputing with the +philosopher Favorinus about the interpretation of some word, Favorinus +soon yielded him the victory; for which his friends rebuking him, "You +talk simply," said he; "would you not have him wiser than I, who commands +thirty legions?" Augustus wrote verses against Asinius Pollio, and "I," +said Pollio, "say nothing, for it is not prudence to write in contest +with him who has power to proscribe." And they were right. For +Dionysius, because he could not equal Philoxenus in poesy and Plato in +discourse, condemned the one to the quarries, and sent the other to be +sold for a slave into the island of AEgina. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OF THE ART OF CONFERENCE + +'Tis a custom of our justice to condemn some for a warning to others. To +condemn them for having done amiss, were folly, as Plato says, + + [Diogenes Laertius, however, in his Life of Plato, iii. 181, says + that Plato's offence was the speaking too freely to the tyrant.] + +for what is done can never be undone; but 'tis to the end they may offend +no more, and that others may avoid the example of their offence: we do +not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him. I do the same; my +errors are sometimes natural, incorrigible, and irremediable: but the +good which virtuous men do to the public, in making themselves imitated, +I, peradventure, may do in making my manners avoided: + + "Nonne vides, Albi ut male vivat filius? utque + Barrus inops? magnum documentum, ne patriam rein + Perdere guis velit;" + + ["Dost thou not see how ill the son of Albus lives? and how the + indigent Barrus? a great warning lest any one should incline to + dissipate his patrimony."--Horace, Sat., i. 4, 109.] + +publishing and accusing my own imperfections, some one will learn to be +afraid of them. The parts that I most esteem in myself, derive more +honour from decrying, than for commending myself which is the reason why +I so often fall into, and so much insist upon that strain. But, when all +is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; a man's +accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never: There may, +peradventure, be some of my own complexion who better instruct myself by +contrariety than by similitude, and by avoiding than by imitation. The +elder Cato was regarding this sort of discipline, when he said, "that the +wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise"; and Pausanias +tells us of an ancient player upon the harp, who was wont to make his +scholars go to hear one who played very ill, who lived over against him, +that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. The +horror of cruelty more inclines me to clemency, than any example of +clemency could possibly do. A good rider does not so much mend my seat, +as an awkward attorney or a Venetian, on horseback; and a clownish way of +speaking more reforms mine than the most correct. The ridiculous and +simple look of another always warns and advises me; that which pricks, +rouses and incites much better than that which tickles. The time is now +proper for us to reform backward; more by dissenting than by agreeing; by +differing more than by consent. Profiting little by good examples, I +make use of those that are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I +endeavour to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as +constant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as +good as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable +measures. + +The most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opinion, is +conversation; I find the use of it more sweet than of any other action of +life; and for that reason it is that, if I were now compelled to choose, +I should sooner, I think, consent to lose my sight, than my hearing and +speech. The Athenians, and also the Romans, kept this exercise in great +honour in their academies; the Italians retain some traces of it to this +day, to their great advantage, as is manifest by the comparison of our +understandings with theirs. The study of books is a languishing and +feeble motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises +at once. If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he +presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations +stir up mine; jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up +to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether +tedious in discourse. But, as our mind fortifies itself by the +communication of vigorous and regular understandings, 'tis not to be +expressed how much it loses and degenerates by the continual commerce and +familiarity we have with mean and weak spirits; there is no contagion +that spreads like that; I know sufficiently by experience what 'tis worth +a yard. I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with but few men, and +for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great +persons, and to make of a man's wit and words competitive parade is, in +my opinion, very unbecoming a man of honour. + +Folly is a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex +at it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than +folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. I enter +into conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch +as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and +wherein to take any deep root; no propositions astonish me, no belief +offends me, though never so contrary to my own; there is no so frivolous +and extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the production +of human wit. We, who deprive our judgment of the right of determining, +look indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and if we incline not our +judgment to them, yet we easily give them the hearing: Where one scale is +totally empty, I let the other waver under an old wife's dreams; and I +think myself excusable, if I prefer the odd number; Thursday rather than +Friday; if I had rather be the twelfth or fourteenth than the thirteenth +at table; if I had rather, on a journey, see a hare run by me than cross +my way, and rather give my man my left foot than my right, when he comes +to put on my stockings. All such reveries as are in credit around us, +deserve at least a hearing: for my part, they only with me import +inanity, but they import that. Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are +something more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself +to proceed so far, falls, peradventure, into the vice of obstinacy, to +avoid that of superstition. + +The contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they +only rouse and exercise, me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to +offer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form +of conference, and not of authority. At every opposition, we do not +consider whether or no it be dust, but, right or wrong, how to disengage +ourselves: instead of extending the arms, we thrust out our claws. I +could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend, so much as to tell +me that I am a fool, and talk I know not of what. I love stout +expressions amongst gentle men, and to have them speak as they think; we +must fortify and harden our hearing against this tenderness of the +ceremonious sound of words. I love a strong and manly familiarity and +conversation: a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and +vigour of its communication, like love in biting and scratching: it is +not vigorous and generous enough, if it be not quarrelsome, if it be +civilised and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock: + + "Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione potest." + + ["Neither can a man dispute, but he must contradict." + (Or:) "Nor can people dispute without reprehension." + --Cicero, De Finib., i. 8.] + +When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger: I +advance towards him who controverts, who instructs me; the cause of truth +ought to be the common cause both of the one and the other. What will +the angry man answer? Passion has already confounded his judgment; +agitation has usurped the place of reason. It were not amiss that the +decision of our disputes should pass by wager: that there might be a +material mark of our losses, to the end we might the better remember +them; and that my man might tell me: "Your ignorance and obstinacy cost +you last year, at several times, a hundred crowns." I hail and caress +truth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, +and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided +it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and +accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility +than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition +by my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense. + +Nevertheless, it is hard to bring the men of my time to it: they have not +the courage to correct, because they have not the courage to suffer +themselves to be corrected; and speak always with dissimulation in the +presence of one another: I take so great a pleasure in being judged and +known, that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the two forms I am +so: my imagination so often contradicts and condemns itself, that 'tis +all one to me if another do it, especially considering that I give his +reprehension no greater authority than I choose; but I break with him, +who carries himself so high, as I know of one who repents his advice, +if not believed, and takes it for an affront if it be not immediately +followed. That Socrates always received smilingly the contradictions +offered to his arguments, a man may say arose from his strength of +reason; and that, the advantage being certain to fall on his side, he +accepted them as a matter of new victory. But we see, on the contrary, +that nothing in argument renders our sentiment so delicate, as the +opinion of pre-eminence, and disdain of the adversary; and that, in +reason, 'tis rather for the weaker to take in good part the oppositions +that correct him and set him right. In earnest, I rather choose the +company of those who ruffle me than of those who fear me; 'tis a dull and +hurtful pleasure to have to do with people who admire us and approve of +all we say. Antisthenes commanded his children never to take it kindly +or for a favour, when any man commended them. I find I am much prouder +of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardour of dispute, +I make myself submit to my adversary's force of reason, than I am pleased +with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness. In fine, I +receive and admit of all manner of attacks that are direct, how weak +soever; but I am too impatient of those that are made out of form. I +care not what the subject is, the opinions are to me all one, and I am +almost indifferent whether I get the better or the worse. I can +peaceably argue a whole day together, if the argument be carried on with +method; I do not so much require force and subtlety as order; I mean the +order which we every day observe in the wranglings of shepherds and shop- +boys, but never amongst us: if they start from their subject, 'tis out of +incivility, and so 'tis with us; but their tumult and impatience never +put them out of their theme; their argument still continues its course; +if they interrupt, and do not stay for one another, they at least +understand one another. Any one answers too well for me, if he answers +what I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the +thing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion; +falling into wilful, malicious, and imperious way of disputation, of +which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a +fool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a +master, but my conscience also. + +Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal +crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed +and commanded by passion? We first quarrel with their reasons, and then +with the men. We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so, +every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the +fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth. Therefore it is +that Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred +people. To what end do you go about to inquire of him, who knows nothing +to the purpose? A man does no injury to the subject, when he leaves it +to seek how he may treat it; I do not mean by an artificial and +scholastic way, but by a natural one, with a sound understanding. What +will it be in the end? One flies to the east, the other to the west; +they lose the principal, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents after an +hour of tempest, they know not what they seek: one is low, the other +high, and a third wide. One catches at a word and a simile; another is +no longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, and thinks only +of going on at his own rate, not of answering you: another, finding +himself too weak to make good his rest, fears all, refuses all, at the +very beginning, confounds the subject; or, in the very height of the +dispute, stops short and is silent, by a peevish ignorance affecting a +proud contempt or a foolishly modest avoidance of further debate: +provided this man strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open; +the other counts his words, and weighs them for reasons; another only +brawls, and uses the advantage of his lungs. Here's one who learnedly +concludes against himself, and another who deafens you with prefaces and +senseless digressions: an other falls into downright railing, and seeks a +quarrel after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit that +presses too hard upon him: and a last man sees nothing into the reason of +the thing, but draws a line of circumvallation about you of dialectic +clauses, and the formulas of his art. + +Now, who would not enter into distrust of sciences, and doubt whether he +can reap from them any solid fruit for the service of life, considering +the use we put them to? + + "Nihil sanantibus litteris." + + ["Letters which cure nothing."--Seneca, Ep., 59.] + +Who has got understanding by his logic? Where are all her fair promises? + + "Nec ad melius vivendum, nec ad commodius disserendum." + + ["It neither makes a man live better nor talk better." + --Cicero, De Fin., i. 19.] + +Is there more noise or confusion in the scolding of herring-wives than in +the public disputes of men of this profession? I had rather my son +should learn in a tap-house to speak, than in the schools to prate. Take +a master of arts, and confer with him: why does he not make us sensible +of this artificial excellence? and why does he not captivate women and +ignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness of his reasons +and the beauty of his order? why does he not sway and persuade us to what +he will? why does a man, who has so much advantage in matter and +treatment, mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations? +Strip him of his gown, his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter our +ears with Aristotle, pure and simple, you will take him for one of us, +or worse. Whilst they torment us with this complication and confusion of +words, it fares with them, methinks, as with jugglers; their dexterity +imposes upon our senses, but does not at all work upon our belief this +legerdemain excepted, they perform nothing that is not very ordinary and +mean: for being the more learned, they are none the less fools. + + [So Hobbes said that if he had read as much as the academical + pedants he should have known as little.] + +I love and honour knowledge as much as they that have it, and in its true +use 'tis the most noble and the greatest acquisition of men; but in such +as I speak of (and the number of them is infinite), who build their +fundamental sufficiency and value upon it, who appeal from their +understanding to their memory: + + "Sub aliena umbra latentes," + + ["Sheltering under the shadow of others."--Seneca, Ep., 33.] + +and who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, if I dare to say so, worse +than stupidity. In my country, and in my time, learning improves +fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and +heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and +undigested mass; if airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtilises +them, even to exinanition. 'Tis a thing of almost indifferent quality; +a very useful accession to a well-born soul, but hurtful and pernicious +to others; or rather a thing of very precious use, that will not suffer +itself to be purchased at an under rate; in the hand of some 'tis a +sceptre, in that of others a fool's bauble. + +But let us proceed. What greater victory do you expect than to make your +enemy see and know that he is not able to encounter you? When you get +the better of your argument; 'tis truth that wins; when you get the +advantage of form and method,'tis then you who win. I am of opinion that +in, Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour of the disputants +than in favour of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthydemus and +Protagoras in the, knowledge of their impertinence, than in the +impertinence of their art. He takes hold of the first subject like one +who has a more profitable end than to explain it--namely, to clear the +understandings that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise. To hunt +after truth is properly our business, and we are inexcusable if we carry +on the chase impertinently and ill; to fail of seizing it is another +thing, for we are born to inquire after truth: it belongs to a greater +power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of +the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine +knowledge. The world is but a school of inquisition: it is not who shall +enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses. He may as well play +the fool who speaks true, as he who speaks false, for we are upon the +manner, not the matter, of speaking. 'Tis my humour as much to regard +the form as the substance, and the advocate as much as the cause, as +Alcibiades ordered we should: and every day pass away my time in reading +authors without any consideration of their learning; their manner is what +I look after, not their subject: And just so do I hunt after the +conversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach me, but that I may +know him, and that knowing him, if I think him worthy of imitation, I may +imitate him. Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, +prudently, and fully, is a talent that few men have. The falsity that +proceeds from ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it. I +have broken off several treaties that would have been of advantage to +me, by reason of the impertinent contestations of those with whom I +treated. I am not moved once in a year at the faults of those over whom +I have authority, but upon the account of the ridiculous obstinacy of +their allegations, denials, excuses, we are every day going together by +the ears; they neither understand what is said, nor why, and answer +accordingly; 'tis enough to drive a man mad. I never feel any hurt upon +my head but when 'tis knocked against another, and more easily forgive +the vices of my servants than their boldness, importunity, and folly; let +them do less, provided they understand what they do: you live in hope to +warm their affection to your service, but there is nothing to be had or +to be expected from a stock. + +But what, if I take things otherwise than they are? Perhaps I do; and +therefore it is that I accuse my own impatience, and hold, in the first +place, that it is equally vicious both in him that is in the right, and +in him that is in the wrong; for 'tis always a tyrannic sourness not to +endure a form contrary to one's own: and, besides, there cannot, in +truth, be a greater, more constant, nor more irregular folly than to be +moved and angry at the follies of the world, for it principally makes us +quarrel with ourselves; and the old philosopher never wanted an occasion +for his tears whilst he considered himself. Miso, one of the seven +sages, of a Timonian and Democritic humour, being asked, "what he +laughed at, being alone?"--"That I do laugh alone," answered he. How +many ridiculous things, in my own opinion, do I say and answer every day +that comes over my head? and then how many more, according to the +opinion of others? If I bite my own lips, what ought others to do? In +fine, we must live amongst the living, and let the river run under the +bridge without our care, or, at least, without our interference. In +truth, why do we meet a man with a hunch-back, or any other deformity, +without being moved, and cannot endure the encounter of a deformed mind +without being angry? this vicious sourness sticks more to the judge than +to the crime. Let us always have this saying of Plato in our mouths: "Do +not I think things unsound, because I am not sound in myself? Am I not +myself in fault? may not my observations reflect upon myself?"--a wise +and divine saying, that lashes the most universal and common error of +mankind. Not only the reproaches that we throw in the face of one +another, but our reasons also, our arguments and controversies, are +reboundable upon us, and we wound ourselves with our own weapons: of +which antiquity. has left me enough grave examples. It was ingeniously +and home-said by him, who was the inventor of this sentence: + + "Stercus cuique suum bene olet." + + ["To every man his own excrements smell well."--Erasmus] + +We see nothing behind us; we mock ourselves an hundred times a day; when +we deride our neighbours; and we detest in others the defects which are +more manifest in us, and which we admire with marvellous inadvertency and +impudence. It was but yesterday that I heard a man of understanding and +of good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the folly of another, +who did nothing but torment everybody with the catalogue of his genealogy +and alliances, above half of them false (for they are most apt to fall +into such ridiculous discourses, whose qualities are most dubious and +least sure), and yet, would he have looked into himself, he would have +discerned himself to be no less intemperate arid wearisome in extolling +his wife's pedigree. O importunate presumption, with which the wife sees +herself armed by the hands of her own husband. Did he understand Latin, +we should say to him: + + "Age, si hic non insanit satis sua sponte, instiga." + + ["Come! if of himself he is not mad enough, urge him on." + --Terence, And., iv. 2, 9.] + +I do not say that no man should accuse another, who is not clean +himself,--for then no one would ever accuse,--clean from the same sort of +spot; but I mean that our judgment, falling upon another who is then in +question, should not, at the same time, spare ourselves, but sentence us +with an inward and severe authority. 'Tis an office of charity, that he +who cannot reclaim himself from a vice, should, nevertheless, endeavour +to remove it from another, in whom, peradventure, it may not have so deep +and so malignant a root; neither do him who reproves me for my fault that +he himself is guilty of the same. What of that? The reproof is, +notwithstanding, true and of very good use. Had we a good nose, our own +ordure would stink worse to us, forasmuch as it is our own: and Socrates +is of opinion that whoever should find himself, his son, and a stranger +guilty of any violence and wrong, ought to begin with himself, present +himself first to the sentence of justice, and implore, to purge himself, +the assistance of the hand of the executioner; in the next place, he +should proceed to his son, and lastly, to the stranger. If this precept +seem too severe, he ought at least to present himself the first, to the +punishment of his own conscience. + +The senses are our first and proper judges, which perceive not things but +by external accidents; and 'tis no wonder, if in all the parts of the +service of our society, there is so perpetual and universal a mixture of +ceremonies and superficial appearances; insomuch that the best and most +effectual part of our polities therein consist. 'Tis still man with whom +we have to do, of whom the condition is wonderfully corporal. Let those +who, of these late years, would erect for us such a contemplative and +immaterial an exercise of religion, not wonder if there be some who think +it had vanished and melted through their fingers had it not more upheld +itself among us as a mark, title, and instrument of division and faction, +than by itself. As in conference, the gravity, robe, and fortune of him +who speaks, ofttimes gives reputation to vain arguments and idle words, +it is not to be presumed but that a man, so attended and feared, has not +in him more than ordinary sufficiency; and that he to whom the king has +given so many offices and commissions and charges, he so supercilious and +proud, has not a great deal more in him, than another who salutes him at +so great a distance, and who has no employment at all. Not only the +words, but the grimaces also of these people, are considered and put into +the account; every one making it his business to give them some fine and +solid interpretation. If they stoop to the common conference, and that +you offer anything but approbation and reverence, they then knock you +down with the authority of their experience: they have heard, they have +seen, they have done so and so: you are crushed with examples. I should +willingly tell them, that the fruit of a surgeon's experience, is not the +history of his practice and his remembering that he has cured four people +of the plague and three of the gout, unless he knows how thence to +extract something whereon to form his judgment, and to make us sensible +that he has thence become more skillful in his art. As in a concert of +instruments, we do not hear a lute, a harpsichord, or a flute alone, but +one entire harmony, the result of all together. If travel and offices +have improved them, 'tis a product of their understanding to make it +appear. 'Tis not enough to reckon experiences, they must weigh, sort and +distil them, to extract the reasons and conclusions they carry along with +them. There were never so many historians: it is, indeed, good and of +use to read them, for they furnish us everywhere with excellent and +laudable instructions from the magazine of their memory, which, +doubtless, is of great concern to the help of life; but 'tis not that we +seek for now: we examine whether these relaters and collectors of things +are commendable themselves. + +I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed. I am very ready to +oppose myself against those vain circumstances that delude our judgments +by the senses; and keeping my eye close upon those extraordinary +greatnesses, I find that at best they are men, as others are: + + "Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa + Fortuna." + + ["For in those high fortunes, common sense is generally rare." + --Juvenal, viii. 73.] + +Peradventure, we esteem and look upon them for less than they are, by +reason they undertake more, and more expose themselves; they do not +answer to the charge they have undertaken. There must be more vigour and +strength in the bearer than in the burden; he who has not lifted as much +as he can, leaves you to guess that he has still a strength beyond that, +and that he has not been tried to the utmost of what he is able to do; he +who sinks under his load, makes a discovery of his best, and the weakness +of his shoulders. This is the reason that we see so many silly souls +amongst the learned, and more than those of the better sort: they would +have made good husbandmen, good merchants, and good artisans: their +natural vigour was cut out to that proportion. Knowledge is a thing of +great weight, they faint under it: their understanding has neither vigour +nor dexterity enough to set forth and distribute, to employ or make use +of this rich and powerful matter; it has no prevailing virtue but in a +strong nature; and such natures are very rare--and the weak ones, says +Socrates, corrupt the dignity of philosophy in the handling, it appears +useless and vicious, when lodged in an ill-contrived mind. They spoil +and make fools of themselves: + + "Humani qualis simulator simius oris, + Quern puer arridens pretioso stamine serum + Velavit, nudasque nates ac terga reliquit, + Ludibrium mensis." + + ["Just like an ape, simulator of the human face, whom a wanton boy + has dizened up in rich silks above, but left the lower parts bare, + for a laughing-stock for the tables." + --Claudian, in Eutrop., i 303.] + +Neither is it enough for those who govern and command us, and have all +the world in their hands, to have a common understanding, and to be able +to do the same that we can; they are very much below us, if they be not +infinitely above us: as they promise more, so they are to perform more. + +And yet silence is to them, not only a countenance of respect and +gravity, but very often of good advantage too: for Megabyzus, going 'to +see Apelles in his painting-room, stood a great while without speaking a +word, and at last began to talk of his paintings, for which he received +this rude reproof: "Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some +great thing, by reason of thy chains and rich habit; but now that we have +heard thee speak, there is not the meanest boy in my workshop that does +not despise thee." Those princely ornaments, that mighty state, did not +permit him to be ignorant with a common ignorance, and to speak +impertinently of painting; he ought to have kept this external and +presumptive knowledge by silence. To how many foolish fellows of my time +has a sullen and silent mien procured the credit of prudence and +capacity! + +Dignities and offices are of necessity conferred more by fortune than +upon the account of merit; and we are often to blame, to condemn kings +when these are misplaced: on the contrary, 'tis a wonder they should have +so good luck, where there is so little skill: + + "Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos;" + + ["'Tis the chief virtue of a prince to know his people." + --Martial, viii. 15.] + +for nature has not given them a sight that can extend to so many people, +to discern which excels the rest, nor to penetrate into our bosoms, where +the knowledge of our wills and best value lies they must choose us by +conjecture and by groping; by the family, wealth, learning, and the voice +of the people, which are all very feeble arguments. Whoever could find +out a way by which they might judge by justice, and choose men by reason, +would, in this one thing, establish a perfect form of government. + +"Ay, but he brought that great affair to a very good pass." This is, +indeed, to say something, but not to say enough: for this sentence is +justly received, "That we are not to judge of counsels by events." +The Carthaginians punished the ill counsels of their captains, though +they were rectified by a successful issue; and the Roman people often +denied a triumph for great and very advantageous victories because the +conduct of their general was not answerable to his good fortune. +We ordinarily see, in the actions of the world, that Fortune, to shew +us her power in all things, and who takes a pride in abating our +presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them +fortunate in emulation of virtue; and most favours those operations the +web of which is most purely her own; whence it is that the simplest +amongst us bring to pass great business, both public and private; and, +as Seiramnes, the Persian, answered those who wondered that his affairs +succeeded so ill, considering that his deliberations were so wise, "that +he was sole master of his designs, but that success was wholly in the +power of fortune"; these may answer the same, but with a contrary turn. +Most worldly affairs are performed by themselves + + "Fata viam inveniunt;" + + ["The destinies find the way."--AEneid, iii. 395] + +the event often justifies a very foolish conduct; our interposition is +little more than as it were a running on by rote, and more commonly a +consideration of custom and example, than of reason. Being formerly +astonished at the greatness of some affair, I have been made acquainted +with their motives and address by those who had performed it, and have +found nothing in it but very ordinary counsels; and the most common and +usual are indeed, perhaps, the most sure and convenient for practice, if +not for show. What if the plainest reasons are the best seated? the +meanest, lowest, and most beaten more adapted to affairs? To maintain +the authority of the counsels of kings, it needs not that profane persons +should participate of them, or see further into them than the outmost +barrier; he who will husband its reputation must be reverenced upon +credit and taken altogether. My consultation somewhat rough-hews the +matter, and considers it lightly by the first face it presents: the +stress and main of the business I have been wont to refer to heaven; + + "Permitte divis caetera." + + ["Leave the rest to the gods."--Horace, Od., i. 9, 9.] + +Good and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two sovereign powers; 'tis folly +to think that human prudence can play the part of Fortune; and vain is +his attempt who presumes to comprehend both causes and consequences, and +by the hand to conduct the progress of his design; and most especially +vain in the deliberations of war. There was never greater circumspection +and military prudence than sometimes is seen amongst us: can it be that +men are afraid to lose themselves by the way, that they reserve +themselves to the end of the game? I moreover affirm that our wisdom +itself and consultation, for the most part commit themselves to the +conduct of chance; my will and my reason are sometimes moved by one +breath, and sometimes by another; and many of these movements there are +that govern themselves without me: my reason has uncertain and casual +agitations and impulsions: + + "Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus + Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat, + Concipiunt." + + ["The aspects of their minds change; and they conceive now such + ideas, now such, just so long as the wind agitated the clouds." + --Virgil, Georg., i. 42.] + +Let a man but observe who are of greatest authority in cities, and who +best do their own business; we shall find that they are commonly men of +the least parts: women, children, and madmen have had the fortune to +govern great kingdoms equally well with the wisest princes, and +Thucydides says, that the stupid more ordinarily do it than those of +better understandings; we attribute the effects of their good fortune to +their prudence: + + "Ut quisque Fortuna utitur, + Ita praecellet; atque exinde sapere illum omnes dicimus;" + + ["He makes his way who knows how to use Fortune, and thereupon we + all call him wise."--Plautus, Pseudol., ii. 3, 13.] + +wherefore I say unreservedly, events are a very poor testimony of our +worth and parts. + +Now, I was upon this point, that there needs no more but to see a man +promoted to dignity; though we knew him but three days before a man of +little regard, yet an image of grandeur of sufficiency insensibly steals +into our opinion, and we persuade ourselves that, being augmented in +reputation and train, he is also increased in merit; we judge of him, not +according to his worth, but as we do by counters, according to the +prerogative of his place. If it happen so that he fall again, and be +mixed with the common crowd, every one inquires with amazement into the +cause of his having been raised so high. "Is this he," say they, "was he +no wiser when he was there? Do princes satisfy themselves with so +little? Truly, we were in good hands." This is a thing that I have +often seen in my time. Nay, even the very disguise of grandeur +represented in our comedies in some sort moves and gulls us. That which +I myself adore in kings is the crowd of their adorers; all reverence and +submission are due to them, except that of the understanding: my reason +is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are. Melanthius being asked +what he thought of the tragedy of Dionysius, "I could not see it," said +he, "it was so clouded with language"; so most of those who judge of the +discourses of great men ought to say, "I did not understand his words, +they were so clouded with gravity, grandeur, and majesty." Antisthenes +one day tried to persuade the Athenians to give order that their asses +might be employed in tilling the ground as well as the horses were; to +which it was answered that that animal was not destined for such a +service: "That's all one," replied he, "you have only to order it: for +the most ignorant and incapable men you employ in the commands of your +wars incontinently become worthy enough, because you employ them"; to +which the custom of so many people, who canonise the king they have +chosen out of their own body, and are not content only to honour, but +must adore them, comes very near. Those of Mexico, after the ceremonies +of their king's coronation are over, dare no more look him in the face; +but, as if they had deified him by his royalty. Amongst the oaths they +make him take to maintain their religion, their laws, and liberties, to +be valiant, just, and mild, he moreover swears to make the sun run his +course in his wonted light, to drain the clouds at fit seasons, to make +rivers run their course, and to cause the earth to bear all things +necessary for his people. + +I differ from this common fashion, and am more apt to suspect the +capacity when I see it accompanied with that grandeur of fortune and +public applause; we are to consider of what advantage it is to speak when +a man pleases, to choose his subject, to interrupt or change it, with a +magisterial authority; to protect himself from the oppositions of others +by a nod, a smile, or silence, in the presence of an assembly that +trembles with reverence and respect. A man of a prodigious fortune +coming to give his judgment upon some slight dispute that was foolishly +set on foot at his table, began in these words: "It can be no other but +a liar or a fool that will say otherwise than so and so." Pursue this +philosophical point with a dagger in your hand. + +There is another observation I have made, from which I draw great +advantage; which is, that in conferences and disputes, every word that +seems to be good, is not immediately to be accepted. Most men are rich +in borrowed sufficiency: a man may say a good thing, give a good answer, +cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one +or the other. That a man may not understand all he borrows, may perhaps +be verified in myself. A man must not always presently yield, what truth +or beauty soever may seem to be in the opposite argument; either he must +stoutly meet it, or retire, under colour of not understanding it, to try, +on all parts, how it is lodged in the author. It may happen that we +entangle ourselves, and help to strengthen the point itself. I have +sometimes, in the necessity and heat of the combat, made answers that +have gone through and through, beyond my expectation or hope; I only gave +them in number, they were received in weight. As, when I contend with a +vigorous man, I please myself with anticipating his conclusions, I ease +him of the trouble of explaining himself, I strive to forestall his +imagination whilst it is yet springing and imperfect; the order and +pertinency of his understanding warn and threaten me afar off: I deal +quite contrary with the others; I must understand, and presuppose nothing +but by them. If they determine in general words, "this is good, that is +naught," and that they happen to be in the right, see if it be not +fortune that hits it off for them: let them a little circumscribe and +limit their judgment; why, or how, it is so. These universal judgments +that I see so common, signify nothing; these are men who salute a whole +people in a crowd together; they, who have a real acquaintance, take +notice of and salute them individually and by name. But 'tis a hazardous +attempt; and from which I have, more than every day, seen it fall out, +that weak understandings, having a mind to appear ingenious, in taking +notice, as they read a book, of what is best and most to be admired, fix +their admiration upon some thing so very ill chosen, that instead of +making us discern the excellence of the author; they make us very well +see their own ignorance. This exclamation is safe, "That is fine," after +having heard a whole page of Virgil; by that the cunning sort save +themselves; but to undertake to follow him line by line, and, with an +expert and tried judgment, to observe where a good author excels himself, +weighing the words, phrases, inventions, and his various excellences, one +after another; keep aloof from that: + + "Videndum est, non modo quid quisque loquatur, sed etiam quid + quisque sentiat, atque etiam qua de causa quisque sentiat." + + ["A man is not only to examine what every one says, but also what + every one thinks, and from what reason every one thinks." + --Cicero, De Offic:, i. 41.] + +I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish: they say a good +thing; let us examine how far they understand it, whence they have it, +and what they mean by it. We help them to make use of this fine +expression, of this fine sentence, which is none of theirs; they only +have it in keeping; they have bolted it out at a venture; we place it for +them in credit and esteem. You lend them your hand. To what purpose? +they do not think themselves obliged to you for it, and become more inept +still. Don't help them; let them alone; they will handle the matter like +people who are afraid of burning their fingers; they dare change neither +its seat nor light, nor break into it; shake it never so little, it slips +through their fingers; they give it up, be it never so strong or fair +they are fine weapons, but ill hafted: How many times have I seen the +experience of this? Now, if you come to explain anything to them, and to +confirm them, they catch at it, and presently rob you of the advantage of +your interpretation; "It was what I was about to say; it was just my +idea; if I did not express it so, it was for want of language." Mere +wind! Malice itself must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance. +The dogma of Hegesias, "that we are neither to hate nor accuse, but +instruct," is correct elsewhere; but here 'tis injustice and inhumanity +to relieve and set him right who stands in no need on't, and is the worse +for't. I love to let them step deeper into the mire; and so deep, that, +if it be possible, they may at last discern their error. + +Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition; and what +Cyrus answered to him, who importuned him to harangue his army, upon the +point of battle, "that men do not become valiant and warlike upon a +sudden, by a fine oration, no more than a man becomes a good musician by +hearing a fine song," may properly be said of such an admonition as this. +These are apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand, by a long and +continued education. We owe this care and this assiduity of correction +and instruction to our own people; but to go preach to the first passer- +by, and to become tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we meet, +is a thing that I abhor. I rarely do it, even in private conversation, +and rather give up the whole thing than proceed to these initiatory and +school instructions; my humour is unfit either to speak or write for +beginners; but for things that are said in common discourse, or amongst +other things, I never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or +absurd soever. + +As to the rest, nothing vexes me so much in folly as that it is more +satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be. 'Tis +unfortunate that prudence forbids us to satisfy and trust ourselves, +and always dismisses us timorous and discontented; whereas obstinacy and +temerity fill those who are possessed with them with joy and assurance. +'Tis for the most ignorant to look at other men over the shoulder, always +returning from the combat full of joy and triumph. And moreover, for the +most part, this arrogance of speech and gaiety of countenance gives them +the better of it in the opinion of the audience, which is commonly weak +and incapable of well judging and discerning the real advantage. +Obstinacy of opinion and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly; +is there anything so assured, resolute, disdainful, contemplative, +serious and grave as the ass? + +May we not include under the title of conference and communication the +quick and sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst +friends, pleasantly and wittily jesting and rallying with one another? +'Tis an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, and +which, if it be not so tense and serious as the other I spoke of but now, +is, as Lycurgus thought, no less smart and ingenious, nor of less +utility. For my part, I contribute to it more liberty than wit, and have +therein more of luck than invention; but I am perfect in suffering, for I +endure a retaliation that is not only tart, but indiscreet to boot, +without being moved at all; and whoever attacks me, if I have not a brisk +answer immediately ready, I do not study to pursue the point with a +tedious and impertinent contest, bordering upon obstinacy, but let it +pass, and hanging down cheerfully my ears, defer my revenge to another +and better time: there is no merchant that always gains: Most men change +their countenance and their voice where their wits fail, and by an +unseasonable anger, instead of revenging themselves, accuse at once their +own folly and impatience. In this jollity, we sometimes pinch the secret +strings of our imperfections which, at another and graver time, we cannot +touch without offence, and so profitably give one another a hint of our +defects. There are other jeux de main,--[practical jokes]--rude and +indiscreet, after the French manner, that I mortally hate; my skin is +very tender and sensible: I have in my time seen two princes of the blood +buried upon that very account. 'Tis unhandsome to fight in play. As to +the rest, when I have a mind to judge of any one, I ask him how far he is +contented with himself; to what degree his speaking or his work pleases +him. I will none of these fine excuses, "I did it only in sport: + + 'Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud.' + + ["That work was taken from the anvil half finished." + --Ovid, Trist., i. 6, 29.] + +I was not an hour about it: I have never looked at it since." Well, +then, say I, lay these aside, and give me a perfect one, such as you +would be measured by. And then, what do you think is the best thing in +your work? is it this part or that? is it grace or the matter, the +invention, the judgment, or the learning? For I find that men are, +commonly, as wide of the mark in judging of their own works, as of those +of others; not only by reason of the kindness they have for them, but for +want of capacity to know and distinguish them: the work, by its own force +and fortune, may second the workman, and sometimes outstrip him, beyond +his invention and knowledge. For my part, I judge of the value of other +men's works more obscurely than of my own; and place the Essays, now +high, or low, with great doubt and inconstancy. There are several books +that are useful upon the account of their subjects, from which the author +derives no praise; and good books, as well as good works, that shame the +workman. I may write the manner of our feasts, and the fashion of our +clothes, and may write them ill; I may publish the edicts of my time, and +the letters of princes that pass from hand to hand; I may make an +abridgment of a good book (and every abridgment of a good book is a +foolish abridgment), which book shall come to be lost; and so on: +posterity will derive a singular utility from such compositions: but what +honour shall I have unless by great good fortune? Most part of the +famous books are of this condition. + +When I read Philip de Commines, doubtless a very good author, several +years ago, I there took notice of this for no vulgar saying, "That a man +must have a care not to do his master so great service, that at last he +will not know how to give him his just reward"; but I ought to commend +the invention, not him, because I met with it in Tacitus, not long since: + + "Beneficia ea usque lxta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse; + ubi multum antevenere, pro gratis odium redditur;" + + ["Benefits are so far acceptable as they appear to be capable of + recompense; where they much exceed that point, hatred is returned + instead of thanks."--Tacitus, Annal., iv. 18.] + +and Seneca vigorously says: + + "Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, + non vult esse cui reddat:" + + ["For he who thinks it a shame not to requite, does not wish to + have the man live to whom he owes return."--Seneca, Ep., 81.] + +Q. Cicero says with less directness.: + + "Qui se non putat satisfacere, + amicus esse nullo modo potest." + + ["Who thinks himself behind in obligation, can by no + means be a friend."--Q. Cicero, De Petitione Consul, c. 9.] + +The subject, according to what it is, may make a man looked upon as +learned and of good memory; but to judge in him the parts that are most +his own and the most worthy, the vigour and beauty of his soul, one must +first know what is his own and what is not; and in that which is not his +own, how much we are obliged to him for the choice, disposition, +ornament, and language he has there presented us with. What if he has +borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it often falls out? We, who +are little read in books, are in this strait, that when we meet with a +high fancy in some new poet, or some strong argument in a preacher, we +dare not, nevertheless, commend it till we have first informed ourselves, +through some learned man, if it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some +other; until that I always stand upon my guard. + +I have lately been reading the history of Tacitus quite through, without +interrupting it with anything else (which but seldom happens with me, it +being twenty years since I have kept to any one book an hour together), +and I did it at the instance of a gentleman for whom France has a great +esteem, as well for his own particular worth, as upon the account of a +constant form of capacity and virtue which runs through a great many +brothers of them. I do not know any author in a public narrative who +mixes so much consideration of manners and particular inclinations: and I +am of a quite contrary opinion to him, holding that, having especially to +follow the lives of the emperors of his time, so various and extreme in +all sorts of forms, so many notable actions as their cruelty especially +produced in their subjects, he had a stronger and more attractive matter +to treat of than if he had had to describe battles and universal +commotions; so that I often find him sterile, running over those brave +deaths as if he feared to trouble us with their multitude and length. +This form of history is by much the most useful; public movements depend +most upon the conduct of fortune, private ones upon our own. 'Tis rather +a judgment than a narration of history; there are in it more precepts +than stories: it is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn; +'tis full of sententious opinions, right or wrong; 'tis a nursery of +ethic and politic discourses, for the use and ornament of those who have +any place in the government of the world. He always argues by strong and +solid reasons, after a pointed and subtle manner, according to the +affected style of that age, which was so in love with an inflated manner, +that where point and subtlety were wanting in things it supplied these +with lofty and swelling words. 'Tis not much unlike the style of Seneca: +I look upon Tacitus as more sinewy, and Seneca as more sharp. His pen +seems most proper for a troubled and sick state, as ours at present is; +you would often say that he paints and pinches us. + +They who doubt his good faith sufficiently accuse themselves of being his +enemy upon some other account. His opinions are sound, and lean to the +right side in the Roman affairs. And yet I am angry at him for judging +more severely of Pompey than consists with the opinion of those worthy +men who lived in the same time, and had dealings with him; and to have +reputed him on a par with Marius and Sylla, excepting that he was more +close. Other writers have not acquitted his intention in the government +of affairs from ambition and revenge; and even his friends were afraid +that victory would have transported him beyond the bounds of reason, but +not to so immeasurable a degree as theirs; nothing in his life threatened +such express cruelty and tyranny. Neither ought we to set suspicion +against evidence; and therefore I do not believe Plutarch in this matter. +That his narrations were genuine and straightforward may, perhaps, be +argued from this very thing, that they do not always apply to the +conclusions of his judgments, which he follows according to the bias he +has taken, very often beyond the matter he presents us withal, which he +has not deigned to alter in the least degree. He needs no excuse for +having approved the religion of his time, according as the laws enjoined, +and to have been ignorant of the true; this was his misfortune, not his +fault. + +I have principally considered his judgment, and am not very well +satisfied therewith throughout; as these words in the letter that +Tiberius, old and sick, sent to the senate. "What shall I write to you, +sirs, or how should I write to you, or what should I not write to you at +this time? May the gods and goddesses lay a worse punishment upon me +than I am every day tormented with, if I know!" I do not see why he +should so positively apply them to a sharp remorse that tormented the +conscience of Tiberius; at least, when I was in the same condition, I +perceived no such thing. + +And this also seemed to me a little mean in him that, having to say that +he had borne an honourable office in Rome, he excuses himself that he +does not say it out of ostentation; this seems, I say, mean for such a +soul as his; for not to speak roundly of a man's self implies some want +of courage; a man of solid and lofty judgment, who judges soundly and +surely, makes use of his own example upon all occasions, as well as those +of others; and gives evidence as freely of himself as of a third person. +We are to pass by these common rules of civility, in favour of truth and +liberty. I dare not only speak of myself, but to speak only of myself: +when I write of anything else, I miss my way and wander from my subject. +I am not so indiscreetly enamoured of myself, so wholly mixed up with, +and bound to myself, that I cannot distinguish and consider myself apart, +as I do a neighbour or a tree: 'tis equally a fault not to discern how +far a man's worth extends, and to say more than a man discovers in +himself. We owe more love to God than to ourselves, and know Him less; +and yet speak of Him as much as we will. + +If the writings of Tacitus indicate anything true of his qualities, he +was a great personage, upright and bold, not of a superstitious but of a +philosophical and generous virtue. One may think him bold in his +relations; as where he tells us, that a soldier carrying a burden of +wood, his hands were so frozen and so stuck to the load that they there +remained closed and dead, being severed from his arms. I always in such +things bow to the authority of so great witnesses. + +What also he says, that Vespasian, by the favour of the god Serapis, +cured a blind woman at Alexandria by anointing her eyes with his spittle, +and I know not what other miracle," he says by the example and duty of +all his good historians. They record all events of importance; and +amongst public incidents are the popular rumours and opinions. 'Tis +their part to relate common beliefs, not to regulate them: that part +concerns divines and philosophers, directors of consciences; and +therefore it was that this companion of his, and a great man like +himself, very wisely said: + + "Equidem plura transcribo, quam credo: nam nec affirmare + sustineo, de quibus dubito, nec subducere quae accepi;" + + ["Truly, I set down more things than I believe, for I can neither + affirm things whereof I doubt, nor suppress what I have heard." + --Quintus Curtius, ix.] + +and this other: + + "Haec neque affirmare neque refellere operae + pretium est; famae rerum standum est." + + ["'Tis neither worth the while to affirm or to refute these things; + we must stand to report"--Livy, i., Praef., and viii. 6.] + +And writing in an age wherein the belief of prodigies began to decline, +he says he would not, nevertheless, forbear to insert in his Annals, and +to give a relation of things received by so many worthy men, and with so +great reverence of antiquity; 'tis very well said. Let them deliver to +us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it. I, who am +monarch of the matter whereof I treat, and who am accountable to none, do +not, nevertheless, always believe myself; I often hazard sallies of my +own wit, wherein I very much suspect myself, and certain verbal quibbles, +at which I shake my ears; but I let them go at a venture. I see that +others get reputation by such things: 'tis not for me alone to judge. I +present myself standing and lying, before and behind, my right side and +my left, and, in all my natural postures. Wits, though equal in force, +are not always equal in taste and application. + +This is what my memory presents to me in gross, and with uncertainty +enough; all judgments in gross are weak and imperfect. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A hundred more escape us than ever come to our knowledge +A man must have courage to fear +A man never speaks of himself without loss +A man's accusations of himself are always believed +Agitation has usurped the place of reason +All judgments in gross are weak and imperfect +Any argument if it be carried on with method +Apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand +Arrogant ignorance +Avoid all magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten +Being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded +Defer my revenge to another and better time +Desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled +Detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us +Disdainful, contemplative, serious and grave as the ass +Do not, nevertheless, always believe myself +Events are a very poor testimony of our worth and parts. +Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment +Fault not to discern how far a man's worth extends +Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition +Folly satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be +Folly than to be moved and angry at the follies of the world +Give us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it +I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish +I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it +I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed +I love stout expressions amongst gentle men +I was too frightened to be ill +If it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some other +Ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it. +It is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn +"It was what I was about to say; it was just my idea," +Judge by justice, and choose men by reason +Knock you down with the authority of their experience +Learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds +Liberality at the expense of others +Malice must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance +Man must have a care not to do his master so great service +Mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations +Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency +My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners +My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are +Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd +New World: sold it opinions and our arts at a very dear rate +Obstinancy and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly +One must first know what is his own and what is not +Our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation +Passion has already confounded his judgment +Pinch the secret strings of our imperfections +Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play +Presumptive knowledge by silence +Silent mien procured the credit of prudence and capacity +Spectators can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure +Study of books is a languishing and feeble motion +The cause of truth ought to be the common cause +The event often justifies a very foolish conduct +The ignorant return from the combat full of joy and triumph +The very name Liberality sounds of Liberty. +There are some upon whom their rich clothes weep +There is no merchant that always gains +There is nothing single and rare in respect of nature +They have heard, they have seen, they have done so and so +They have not the courage to suffer themselves to be corrected +Tis impossible to deal fairly with a fool +To fret and vex at folly, as I do, is folly itself +Transferring of money from the right owners to strangers +Tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we meet +Tyrannic sourness not to endure a form contrary to one's own +Universal judgments that I see so common, signify nothing +"What he laughed at, being alone?"--"That I do laugh alone," +We are not to judge of counsels by events +We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him +We neither see far forward nor far backward +Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some great thing +Who has once been a very fool, will never after be very wise +Wide of the mark in judging of their own works +Wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Essays of Montaigne, V16 +By Michel de Montaigne + diff --git a/old/mn16v11.zip b/old/mn16v11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a13514 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mn16v11.zip |