—Here stands _wit_—and there stands _judgment_, close beside it, just
like the two knobs I’m speaking of, upon the back of this self-same
chair on which I am sitting.
—You see, they are the highest and most ornamental parts of its
_frame_—as wit and judgment are of _ours_—and like them too,
indubitably both made and fitted to go together, in order, as we say in
all such cases of duplicated embellishments——_to answer one another._
Now for the sake of an experiment, and for the clearer illustrating
this matter—let us for a moment take off one of these two curious
ornaments (I care not which) from the point or pinnacle of the chair it
now stands on—nay, don’t laugh at it,—but did you ever see, in the
whole course of your lives, such a ridiculous business as this has made
of it?—Why, ’tis as miserable a sight as a sow with one ear; and there
is just as much sense and symmetry in the one as in the
other:——do——pray, get off your seats only to take a view of it,——Now
would any man who valued his character a straw, have turned a piece of
work out of his hand in such a condition?——nay, lay your hands upon
your hearts, and answer this plain question, Whether this one single
knob, which now stands here like a blockhead by itself, can serve any
purpose upon earth, but to put one in mind of the want of the
other?—and let me farther ask, in case the chair was your own, if you
would not in your consciences think, rather than be as it is, that it
would be ten times better without any knob at all?
Now these two knobs——or top ornaments of the mind of man, which crown
the whole entablature——being, as I said, wit and judgment, which of all
others, as I have proved it, are the most needful——the most priz’d—the
most calamitous to be without, and consequently the hardest to come
at—for all these reasons put together, there is not a mortal among us,
so destitute of a love of good fame or feeding——or so ignorant of what
will do him good therein—who does not wish and stedfastly resolve in
his own mind, to be, or to be thought at least, master of the one or
the other, and indeed of both of them, if the thing seems any way
feasible, or likely to be brought to pass.
Now your graver gentry having little or no kind of chance in aiming at
the one—unless they laid hold of the other,——pray what do you think
would become of them?——Why, Sirs, in spite of all their _gravities_,
they must e’en have been contented to have gone with their insides
naked——this was not to be borne, but by an effort of philosophy not to
be supposed in the case we are upon——so that no one could well have
been angry with them, had they been satisfied with what little they
could have snatched up and secreted under their cloaks and great
perriwigs, had they not raised a _hue_ and _cry_ at the same time
against the lawful owners.
I need not tell your worships, that this was done with so much cunning
and artifice——that the great _Locke_, who was seldom outwitted by false
sounds——was nevertheless bubbled here. The cry, it seems, was so deep
and solemn a one, and what with the help of great wigs, grave faces,
and other implements of deceit, was rendered so general a one against
the _poor wits_ in this matter, that the philosopher himself was
deceived by it—it was his glory to free the world from the lumber of a
thousand vulgar errors;——but this was not of the number; so that
instead of sitting down coolly, as such a philosopher should have done,
to have examined the matter of fact before he philosophised upon it—on
the contrary he took the fact for granted, and so joined in with the
cry, and halloo’d it as boisterously as the rest.
This has been made the _Magna Charta_ of stupidity ever since——but your
reverences plainly see, it has been obtained in such a manner, that the
title to it is not worth a groat:——which by-the-bye is one of the many
and vile impositions which gravity and grave folks have to answer for
hereafter.
As for great wigs, upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind
too freely——I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly said
to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration —That I
have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great
wigs or long beards, any farther than when I see they are bespoke and
let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture—for any
purpose——peace be with them!— =>mark only——I write not for them.