IS it not a shame to make two chapters of what passed in going down one
pair of stairs? for we are got no farther yet than to the first
landing, and there are fifteen more steps down to the bottom; and for
aught I know, as my father and my uncle _Toby_ are in a talking humour,
there may be as many chapters as steps:——let that be as it will, Sir, I
can no more help it than my destiny:—A sudden impulse comes across
me——drop the curtain, _Shandy_——I drop it—Strike a line here across the
paper, _Tristram_—I strike it—and hey for a new chapter.
The deuce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this
affair—and if I had one—as I do all things out of all rule—I would
twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had
done—Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it——a pretty story! is a
man to follow rules——or rules to follow him?
Now this, you must know, being my chapter upon chapters, which I
promised to write before I went to sleep, I thought it meet to ease my
conscience entirely before I laid down, by telling the world all I knew
about the matter at once: Is not this ten times better than to set out
dogmatically with a sententious parade of wisdom, and telling the world
a story of a roasted horse——that chapters relieve the mind—that they
assist—or impose upon the imagination—and that in a work of this
dramatic cast they are as necessary as the shifting of scenes——with
fifty other cold conceits, enough to extinguish the fire which roasted
him?—O! but to understand this, which is a puff at the fire of
_Diana_’s temple—you must read _Longinus_—read away—if you are not a
jot the wiser by reading him the first time over—never fear—read him
again—_Avicenna_ and _Licetus_ read _Aristotle_’s metaphysicks forty
times through a-piece, and never understood a single word.—But mark the
consequence—_Avicenna_ turned out a desperate writer at all kinds of
writing—for he wrote books _de omni scribili_; and for _Licetus
(Fortunio)_ though all the world knows he was born a fœtus,[13] of no
more than five inches and a half in length, yet he grew to that
astonishing height in literature, as to write a book with a title as
long as himself——the learned know I mean his _Gonopsychanthropologia_,
upon the origin of the human soul.
So much for my chapter upon chapters, which I hold to be the best
chapter in my whole work; and take my word, whoever reads it, is full
as well employed, as in picking straws.
[13] _Ce Fœtus_ n’étoit pas plus grand que la paume de la main; mais
son pere l’ayant éxaminé en qualité de Médecin, & ayant trouvé que
c’etoit quelque chose de plus qu’un Embryon, le fit transporter tout
vivant à Rapallo, ou il le fit voir à Jerôme Bardi & à d’autres
Médecins du lieu. On trouva qu’il ne lui manquoit rien d’essentiel à
la vie; & son pere pour faire voir un essai de son experience,
entreprit d’achever l’ouvrage de la Nature, & de travailler à la
formation de l’Enfant avec le même artifice que celui dont on se sert
pour faire écclorre les Poulets en Egypte. Il instruisit une Nourisse
de tout ce qu’elle avoit à faire, & ayant fait mettre son fils dans un
pour proprement accommodé, il reussit à l’elever & a lui faire prendre
ses accroissemens necessaires, par l’uniformité d’une chaleur
étrangere mesurée éxactement sur les dégrés d’un Thermométre, ou d’un
autre instrument équivalent. (Vide Mich. Giustinian, ne gli Scritt.
Liguri à Cart. 223. 488.)
On auroit toujours été très satisfait de l’industrie d’un pere si
experimenté dans l’Art de la Generation, quand il n’auroit pû prolonger
la vie à son fils que pour Puelques mois, ou pour peu d’années.
Mais quand on se represente que l’Enfant a vecu près de quatre-vingts
ans, & qu’il a composé quatre-vingts Ouvrages differents tous fruits
d’une longue lecture—il faut convenir que tout ce qui est incroyable
n’est pas toujours faux, & que la _Vraisemblance n’est pas toujours du
côté la Verité._
Il n’avoit que dix neuf ans lorsqu’il composa Gonopsychanthropologia de
Origine Animæ humanæ.
(Les Enfans celebres, revûs & corrigés par M. de la Monnoye de
l’Academie Françoise.