said that some fortune-teller menaced him with the fall of a house as
his doom, upon which he at once left the town and made his bed in the
open fields, far from roofs and beneath the sky. But an eagle flew by
overhead carrying in its talons a tortoise, and seeing the bald head of
the poet beneath, which it mistook for a stone, the bird let fall its
prey in order to break the shell of the tortoise. Thus were the days of
poor Æschylus ended.
From these two examples it would seem that this art of fortune-telling,
if there be any truth in it, causes one to fall into the very evil one
would be in dread of when one consulted it. But I will demonstrate and
maintain that the art is false. I do not believe that Nature would have
tied her own hands, and ours also, to the extent of marking our fate in
the heavens. For our fate depends upon certain combinations of time,
place, and people; not upon the combinations of charlatans. A shepherd
and a king are born under the same planet: one carries the sceptre; the
other the crook. The planet Jupiter willed it so! But what is this
planet Jupiter? A body without senses. Whence comes it then that its
influence works so differently on these two men? Further, how could its
influence, if it had any, penetrate through endless voids to our world?
* * * * *
Do not attach too much importance to the two instances I have related.
This beloved son and the good man Æschylus are beside the mark.
Nevertheless, however blind and lying is the fortuneteller's art, it may
yet hit home once in a thousand times. That is just a matter of chance.
[Illustration]
XXI
JUPITER AND THE THUNDERBOLTS
(BOOK VIII--No. 20)
One day, as Jupiter seated on high looked down upon the world, he was
incensed at the faults committed by mankind. "Let us," he said, "have
some other occupants in the regions of the universe in place of these
present inhabitants who importune and weary me. Go you to Hades,
Mercury, and bring hither the cruellest of the furies. This time, O race
that I have too tenderly nurtured, you shall perish."
After this outburst the temper of the god began to cool.
O ye sovereigns of this world, to whom it has been given to be the
arbiters of our destinies, let a night intervene between your wrath and
the storm which follow!
Mercury, light of wing and sweet of tongue, descended to the abode of
the dread sisters Tisiphone, Megæra, and Alecto, and his choice fell
upon the latter, the pitiless one. She, feeling proud of the preference,
grew so arrogant as to swear by Pluto that the whole of the human brood
should soon people his domains. But Jupiter did not approve of the vow
this member of the Eumenides had sworn, and he sent her back to Hades.
At the same time he launched a thunderbolt upon one particularly
perfidious race of men. This, however, being hurled by a father's arm,
mercifully fell in a desert, causing less ruin than alarm. What followed
from this was simply that the wicked brood took heart at such indulgence
and did not trouble to mend their ways. Then all the gods in Olympus
complained, until he who controls the clouds swore by the Styx that
further storms should be sent and that they should not fail as the other
had.
The Olympians only smiled at this. They told Jupiter that as he was the
father it would be better if he left in other hands the making of
thunderbolts. Vulcan undertook the task. Soon his furnaces glowed with
bolts of two kinds; one that hits its mark with a deadly unerring--and
that is the sort which any of the Olympian gods will hurl; whilst the
other sort was that which becomes scattered on its course and does
damage only to the mountain tops, or perchance is even lost on the way.
It is this kind of thunderbolt that Jupiter sends. His fatherly heart
permits him to use no other.
XXII
EDUCATION
(BOOK VIII.--No. 24)
Once upon a time there were two dogs, one named Lurcher and the other
Cæsar. They were brothers; handsome, well-built, and plucky, and
descended from dogs who were famous in their day. These two brothers,
falling into the hands of different masters, found their destinies
likewise in different spheres; for whilst one haunted the forests, the
other lurched about a kitchen.
The names to which they now answered were not, however, the names that
were first given them. The influence of each one's career upon his
nature brought about a new name and a new reputation; for Cæsar's nature
was improved and strengthened by the life he led, whilst Lurcher's was
made more and more despicable by a degraded existence. A scullion named
him Lurcher; but the other dog received his noble name on account of his
life of high adventure. He had held many a stag at bay, killed many a
hare, and otherwise risen to the position of a Cæsar among dogs. Care
was taken that he should not mate indiscriminately, so that his
descendants' blood should not degenerate. On the other hand, poor
Lurcher bestowed his affections wherever he would and his brood became
populous. He was the progenitor of all turn-spits in France; a variety
which became common enough to form at last a race in themselves. They
show more readiness to flee than to attack, and are the very antipodes
of the Cæsars.
We do not always follow our ancestors, nor even resemble our fathers.
Want of care, the flight of time, a thousand things, cause us to
degenerate.
Ah! how many, Cæsars, failing to cultivate their best nature and their
gifts, become Lurchers!
XXIII
DEMOCRITUS AND THE PEOPLE OF ABDERA
(BOOK VIII.--No. 26)
How I have always hated the opinions of the mob! To me, a mob seems
profane, unjust, and rash, putting false construction on all things, and
judging every matter by a mob-made standard.
Democritus had experience of this. His countrymen thought him mad.
Little minds! But then, no one is a prophet in his own country! The
people themselves were mad, of course, and Democritus was the wise man.
Nevertheless the error went so far that the city of Abdera[6] sent a
messenger to the great physician Hippocrates, requesting him both by
letter and by spoken word to come and restore the sage's reason.
"Our citizen," said the spokesman with tears in his eyes, "has lost his
wits, alas! Study has corrupted Democritus. If he were less wise we
should esteem him much more. He will have it that there is no limit to
the number of worlds like ours and that possibly they are inhabited with
numberless Democrituses. Not satisfied with these wild dreams, he talks
also of atoms--phantoms born only in his own empty brain. Then,
measuring the very heavens, though he remains here below to do it, he
claims to know the universe; yet admits that he does not know himself.
Time was when he could control debates, now he mutters only to himself.
So come, thou divine mortal, for the patient's case is a bad one."
Hippocrates, though he had little faith in these people, went
nevertheless. Now mark, I beg of you, what strange meetings fate may
bring about in this life! Hippocrates arrived just at the time when this
man, who was supposed to have neither sense nor reason, happened to be
searching into a question as to whether this very reason was seated in
the heart or in the head of men and beasts.
Sitting in leafy shade, beside a brook, and with many a volume at his
feet, he was occupied wholly with a study of the convolutions of the
brain; and thus absorbed, as his manner was, he scarcely noticed the
advance of his friend the learned physician. Their greeting was soon
over as you may imagine, for the sage is at all times chary of time and
speech. So having put aside mere trifles of conversation, they reasoned
upon man and his mind, and next fell to talking upon ethics.
It is not necessary that I should here enlarge upon what each had to say
to the other on these matters.
The little tale suffices to show that we may rightly take exception to
the judgments of the mob. That being so, in what sense is it true, as I
have read in a certain passage, that the voice of the people is the
voice of God?
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: A city on the shores of Thracia.]
[Illustration]
XXIV
THE ACORN AND THE PUMPKIN
(BOOK IX.--No. 4)
What God does is done well. Without going round the world to seek a
proof of that, I can find one in the pumpkin.
A villager was once struck with the largeness of a pumpkin and the
thinness of the stem upon which it grew. "What could the Almighty have
been thinking about?" he cried. "He has certainly chosen a bad place for
a pumpkin to grow. Eh zounds! Now I would have hung it on one of these
oaks. That would have been just as it should be. Like fruit, like tree!
What a pity, Hodge," said he, addressing himself, "that you were not on
the spot to give advice at the Creation which the parson preaches
about. Everything would have been properly done then. For instance;
wouldn't this acorn, no bigger than my little finger, be better hanging
on this frail stem? The Almighty has blundered there surely! The more I
think about these fruits and their situations, the more it seems to me
that it is all a mistake."
Becoming worried by so much reflection our Hodge cast himself under an
oak saying, "A man can't sleep when he has so much brain." Then he at
once dropped off into a nap.
Presently an acorn fell plump upon his nose. Starting from sleep, he put
his hand up to see what had happened and found the acorn caught in his
beard, whilst his nose began to pain and bleed. "Oh, oh!" he cried, "I
am bleeding. How would it have been if a heavier mass than this had
fallen from the tree: if this acorn had been a pumpkin? The Almighty did
not intend that, I see. Doubtless he was right. I understand the reason
why perfectly now."
So praising God for all things Hodge took his way home.
XXV
THE SCHOOLBOY, THE PEDANT, AND THE OWNER OF A GARDEN
(BOOK IX.--No. 5)
A youngster, who was doubly foolish and doubly a rogue--in which perhaps
he savoured of the school he went to--was given, they say, to robbing a
neighbour's garden of its fruit and flowers. This may have been because
he was too young to know better, and perhaps because teachers do not
always mould the minds of young people in the right way.
The owner of the garden boasted in each season the very best of what was
due. In spring he could show the most delightful blossoms and in autumn
the very pick of all the apples.
One day he espied this schoolboy carelessly climbing a fruit tree and
knocking off the buds, those sweet and fragile forerunners of promised
fruit in abundance. The urchin even broke off a bough, and did so much
other damage that the owner sent a message of complaint to the boy's
schoolmaster. This worthy soon appeared, and behind him a tribe of the
scholars, who swarmed into the orchard and began behaving worse than the
first one. The schoolmaster's plan in thus aggravating the injury was
really to make an opportunity for delivering them all a good lesson,
which they should remember all their lives. He quoted Virgil and
Cicero; he made many scientific allusions and ran his discourse to such
a length that the little wretches were able to get all over the garden
and despoil it in a hundred places.
I hate pompous and pedantic speeches that are out of place and
never-ending; and I do not know a worse fool in the world than a naughty
schoolboy--unless indeed it be the schoolmaster of such a boy. The
better of them would never suit me as a neighbour.
XXVI
THE SCULPTOR AND THE STATUE OF JUPITER
(BOOK IX.--No. 6)
Once a sculptor who saw for sale a block of marble was so struck with
its beauty that he could not resist the temptation to buy it. When it
was in his studio he thought to himself, "Now what shall my chisel make
of it? Shall it be a god, a table, or a basin? It shall be a god. And I,
myself, shall ordain that the god shall poise a thunderbolt in his hand.
So tremble, mortals, and worship! Behold the lord of the earth!"
The artist set to work and expressed so powerfully the attributes of the
god that those who saw it averred that it only lacked speech to be
Jupiter himself. It is said that the sculptor had scarcely completed the
statue when he became so overawed as to fear and tremble before the work
of his own hands.
The poet of old, likewise, greatly dreaded the hate and the wrath of the
gods he himself created: a weakness which left little to choose between
him and the sculptor.
These traits are those of childhood. The minds of children are always
anxious lest any one should maltreat their dolls. The emotions
invariably give the lead to the intellect, and this fact accounts for
the great error of paganism. For that error has been prompted by the
emotions of men in all the peoples of the earth. Men uphold with fanatic
zeal the interests of the unreal creatures of their imagination.
Pygmalion became enamoured of the Venus[7] he had created, and in the
same way every one tries to turn his dreams into reality. Man remains as
ice before truth, but catches fire before illusion.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: La Fontaine forgets. It was Galatea whose image Pygmalion
created and whom Venus brought to life.]
XXVII
THE OYSTER AND THE PLEADERS
(BOOK IX.--No. 9)
One day two pilgrims espied upon the sands of the shore an oyster that
had been thrown up by the tide. They devoured it with their eyes whilst
pointing at it with their fingers; but whose teeth should deal with it
was a matter of dispute.
When one stopped to pick up the prey the other pushed him away saying:
"It would be just as well first to decide which of us is to have the
pleasure of it. He who first saw it should swallow it, and let the other
watch him eat."
"If you settle the affair that way," replied his companion, "I have good
eyes, thank God."
"But my sight is not bad either," said the other, "and I saw it before
you did, and that I'll stake my life upon."
"Well, suppose you did see it, I smelt it."
During this lively interlude Justice Nincompoop arrived on the scene,
and to him they appealed to judge their claims. The justice very gravely
took the oyster, opened it, and put it into his mouth, whilst the two
claimants looked on. Having deliberately swallowed the oyster, the
justice, in the portentous tones of a Lord Chief Justice, said, "The
court here awards each of you a shell, without costs. Let each go home
peaceably."
Reckon what it costs to go to law in these days. Then count what remains
to most families. You will see that Justice Nincompoop draws all the
money and leaves only the empty purse and the shells to the litigants.
[Illustration: Deliberately swallowed the oyster.]
XXVIII
THE CAT AND THE FOX
(BOOK IX.--No. 14)
The cat and the fox, in the manner of good little saints, started out
upon a pilgrimage. They were both humbugs, arch-hypocrites, two
downright highwaymen, who for the expenses of their journey indemnified
themselves by seeing who could devour the most fowls and gobble the most
cheese.
The way was long and therefore wearisome, so they shortened it by
arguing. Argumentation is a great help. Without it one would go to
sleep. Our pilgrims shouted themselves hoarse. Then having argued
themselves out, they talked of other things.
At length the fox said to the cat, "You pretend that you're very clever.
Do you know as much as I? I have a hundred ruses up my sleeve."
"No," answered the cat, "I have but one; but that is always ready to
hand, and I maintain that it is worth a thousand other dodges."
Then they fell again to disputing one against the other on each side of
the question, the whys and the wherefores, raising their voices higher
and higher. Presently the sudden appearance of a pack of hounds stopped
their noise.
The cat said to the fox, "Now, my friend, ransack that cunning brain of
yours for one of your thousand ruses. Fetch down from your sleeve one of
those certain stratagems. As for me, this is my dodge." So saying, he
bounded to a tall tree and climbed to its top with alacrity.
The fox tried a hundred futile doublings; ran into a hundred holes; put
the hounds at fault a hundred times; tried everywhere to find a safe
place of retreat, but everywhere failed between being smoked out of one
and driven out of another by the hounds. Finally, as he came out of a
hole two nimble dogs set upon him and strangled him at the first grip.
Too many expedients may spoil the business. One loses time in choosing
between them and in trying too many. Have only one; but let it be a good
one.
XXIX
THE MONKEY AND THE CAT
(BOOK IX.--No. 17)
Bertrand was a monkey and Ratter was a cat. They shared the same
dwelling and had the same master, and a pretty mischievous pair they
were. It was impossible to intimidate them. If anything was missed or
spoilt, no one thought of blaming the other people in the house.
Bertrand stole all he could lay his hands upon, and as for Ratter, he
gave more attention to cheese than he did to the mice.
One day, in the chimney corner, these two rascals sat watching some
chestnuts that were roasting before the fire. How jolly it would be to
steal them they thought: doubly desirable, for it would not only be joy
to themselves, but an annoyance to others.
"Brother," said Bertrand to Ratter, "this day you shall achieve your
master-stroke: you shall snatch some chestnuts out of the fire for me.
Providence has not fitted me for that sort of game. If it had, I assure
you chestnuts would have a fine time."
No sooner said than done. Ratter delicately stirred the cinders with his
paw, stretched out his claws two or three times to prepare for the
stroke, and then adroitly whipped out first one, then two, then three of
the chestnuts, whilst Bertrand crunched them up between his teeth. In
came a servant, and there was an end of the business. Farewell, ye
rogues!
I am told that Ratter was by no means satisfied with the affair.
And princes are equally dissatisfied when, flattered to be employed in
any uncomfortable concern, they burn their fingers in a distant province
for the profit of some king.
XXX
THE TWO RATS, THE FOX, AND THE EGG[8]
(BOOK X.--No. 1)
Do not take it ill if, in these fables, I mingle a little of the bold,
daring, and fine-spun philosophy that is called new.
They say that the lower animals are mere machines: that everything they
do is prompted, not by choice, but by mechanism, coming about as it were
by springs. There is, they say, neither feeling nor soul--nothing but a
mechanical body. It goes just as a watch or clock goes, plodding on with
even motion, blindly and aimlessly.
Open such a machine and examine it; what do we find? Wheels take the
place of intelligence. The first wheel moves the second, and that in
turn moves a third, with the result that, in due time, it strikes the
hour.
According to these new philosophers, that is exactly the case with an
animal. It receives a blow in a certain spot, this spot conveys the
sensation to another spot, and so the message goes on from place to
place until the brain receives it and the impression is made. That is
all very well, but how is the impression made?
It is necessarily made, without passion, without will, say these
philosophers. They tell us that the common idea is that an animal is
actuated by emotions which we know as sorrow, joy, love, pleasure, pain,
cruelty, or some other of these states; but that it is not so. Do not
deceive yourself, they say.
"What is it then?" I ask. A watch, indeed! And pray what of ourselves?
Ah, well! that is perhaps another thing altogether. This is the way
Descartes expounds the theory--Descartes, that mortal who, if he had
lived in pagan times, would have been made a god, and who holds a place
between man and the higher spirits, just as some I could name--beasts of
burden with long ears--hold a place between man and the oysters. Thus, I
say, reasons this author: "I have a gift beyond any possessed by others
of God's creatures, and that is the gift of thought. I know of what I
think."
But from positive science we know that although animals may think, they
cannot reflect upon what they think. Descartes goes further and boldly
states that they do not think at all. That is a statement which need not
worry us.
Nevertheless, when in the woods the blast of a horn and the baying of
hounds agitates the fleeing quarry; when he vainly endeavours, with all
his skill, to confuse and muddle the scent which betrays him to his
pursuers; when, an aged beast with full-grown antlers, he puts in his
place a younger stag and forces it to carry on the chase with its
fresher bait of the scent of its younger body, and thus carry off the
hounds and preserve his days--then surely this beast has reasoned. All
the twisting and turning, all the malice, deception, and the hundred
stratagems to save his life are worthy of the greatest chiefs of war;
and worthy of a better fate than death by being torn to pieces; for that
is the supreme honour of the stag.
Again; when the partridge sees its young in danger, before their wings
have strength enough to bear them away from death, she makes a pretence
of being wounded and flutters along with a trailing wing, enticing the
huntsman and his dogs to follow her, and thus by turning away the danger
saves her little ones. And when the huntsman believes that his dog has
seized her, lo! she rises, laughs at the sportsman, wishes him farewell,
and leaves him confused and watching her flight with his eyes.
Not far from the northern regions there is a country where life goes on
as in the early ages, the inhabitants being profoundly ignorant. I speak
now of the human creatures. The animals are indeed surprisingly
enlightened; for they can construct works which stop the ravages of
swollen torrents and make communication possible from bank to bank. The
structures are safe and lasting, being founded upon wood over which is
laid a bed of mortar. The beavers are the engineers. Each one works. The
task is common to all, and the old ones see that the young ones do not
shirk their labour. There are many taskmasters directing and urging.
To such a colony of cunning amphibians the republic of Plato itself
would be but an apprentice affair. The beavers erect their houses for
the winter time, and make bridges of marvellous construction for passing
over the ponds; whilst the human folk who live there, though this
wonderful work is always before their eyes, can but cross the water by
swimming.
That these beavers are nothing but bodies without minds nothing will
make me believe. But here is something better still. Listen to this
recital which I had from a king great in fame and glory. This king,
defender of the northern world, whom I now cite, is my guarantee: a
prince beloved of the goddess of Victory. His name alone is a bulwark
against the empire of the Turks. I speak of the Polish king.[9] A king,
it is understood, can never lie.
He says, then, that upon the frontiers of his kingdom there are animals
that have always been at war among themselves, their passion for
fighting having been handed down from father to son. These animals, he
explains, are allied to the fox. Never has the science of war been more
skilfully pursued among men than it is pursued by these beasts, not even
in our present century. They have their advanced out-posts, their
sentinels and spies; their ambuscades, their expedients, and a thousand
other inventions of the pernicious and accursed science Warfare, a hag
born, herself, of Styx,[10] but giving birth to heroes.
Properly to sing of the battles of these four-footed warriors Homer
should return from beyond the shores of Acheron.[11] Ah! could he but do
so, and bring with him too the rival of old Epicurus,[12] what would the
latter say as to the examples I have narrated? He would say only what I
have already said, namely, that in the lower animals natural instinct is
sufficient to explain all the wonders I have told: that memory leads the
animal to repeat over and over again the actions it has made before and
found successful.