The Essays of Montaigne/Book III/Chapter VIII
Chapter VIII. Of the Art of Conference.
[edit]'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.