OF LEVITY OF MIND, AND OTHER IMPEDIMENTS OF A HAPPY LIFE.
Now, to sum up what is already delivered, we have showed what happiness
is, and wherein it consists: that it is founded upon wisdom and virtue;
for we must first know what we ought to do, and then live according to
that knowledge. We have also discoursed the helps of philosophy and
precept toward a _happy life_; the blessing of a good conscience; that
a good man can never be miserable, nor a wicked man happy; nor any
man unfortunate that cheerfully submits to Providence. We shall now
examine, how it comes to pass that, when the certain way to happiness
lies so fair before us, men will yet steer their course on the other
side, which as manifestly leads to ruin.
There are some that live without any design at all, and only pass
in the world like straws upon a river; they do not go, but they are
carried. Others only deliberate upon the parts of life, and not upon
the whole, which is a great error: for there is no disposing of the
circumstances of it, unless we first propound the main scope. How shall
any man take his aim without a mark? or what wind will serve him that
is not yet resolved upon his port? We live as it were by chance, and
by chance we are governed. Some there are that torment themselves
afresh with the memory of what is past: “Lord! what did I endure? never
was any man in my condition; everybody gave me over; my very heart
was ready to break,” etc. Others, again, afflict themselves with the
apprehension of evils to come; and very ridiculously: for the _one_
does not _now_ concern us, and the _other_ not _yet_: beside that,
there may he remedies for mischiefs likely to happen; for they give us
warning by signs and symptoms of their approach. Let him that would be
quiet take heed not to provoke men that are in power, but live without
giving offence; and if we cannot make all great men our friends, it
will suffice to keep them from being our enemies. This is a thing we
must avoid, as a mariner would do a storm.
A rash seaman never considers what wind blows, or what course he
steers, but runs at a venture, as if he would brave the rocks and the
eddies; whereas he that is careful and considerate, informs himself
beforehand where the danger lies, and what weather it is like to be:
he consults his compass, and keeps aloof from those places that are
infamous for wrecks and miscarriages; so does a wise man in the common
business of life; he keeps out of the way from those that may do him
hurt: but it is a point of prudence not to let them take notice that
he does it on purpose; for that which a man shuns he tacitly condemns.
Let him have a care also of _listeners_, _newsmongers_, and _meddlers_
in other people’s matters; for their discourse is commonly of such
things as are never profitable, and most commonly dangerous either to
be spoken or heard.
Levity of mind is a great hindrance of repose, and the very change
of wickedness is an addition to the wickedness itself; for it is
inconstancy added to iniquity; we relinquish the thing we sought, and
then we take it up again; and so divide our lives between our lust and
our repentances. From one appetite we pass to another, not so much
upon choice as for change; and there is a check of conscience that
casts a damp upon all our unlawful pleasures, which makes us lose the
day in expectation of the night, and the night itself for fear of the
approaching light.
Some people are _never_ at quiet, others are _always_ so, and they are
both to blame: for that which looks like vivacity and industry in the
one is only a restlessness and agitation; and that which passes in the
other for moderation and reserve is but a drowsy and unactive sloth.
Let motion and rest both take their turns, according to the order of
Nature, which makes both the day and the night. Some are perpetually
shifting from one thing to another; others, again, make their whole
life but a kind of uneasy sleep: some lie tossing and turning until
very weariness brings them to rest; others, again, I cannot so properly
call inconstant as lazy. There are many proprieties and diversities of
vice; but it is one never-failing effect of it to live displeased. We
do all of us labor under inordinate desires; we are either timorous,
and dare not venture, or venturing we do not succeed; or else we cast
ourselves upon uncertain hopes, where we are perpetually solicitous,
and in suspense. In this distraction we are apt to propose to ourselves
things dishonest and hard; and when we have taken great pains to no
purpose, we come then to repent of our undertakings: we are afraid to
go on, and we can neither master our appetites nor obey them: we live
and die restless and irresolute; and, which is worst of all, when we
grow weary of the public, and betake ourselves to solitude for relief,
our minds are sick and wallowing, and the very house and walls are
troublesome to us; we grow impatient and ashamed of ourselves, and
suppress our inward vexation until it breaks our heart for want of
vent. This is it that makes us sour and morose, envious of others, and
dissatisfied with ourselves; until at last, betwixt our troubles for
other people’s successes and the despair of our own, we fall foul upon
Fortune and the times, and get into a corner perhaps, where we sit
brooding over our own disquiets. In these dispositions there is a kind
of pruriginous fancy, that makes some people take delight in labor and
uneasiness, like the clawing of an itch until the blood starts.
This is it that puts us upon rambling voyages; one while by land; but
still disgusted with the present: the town pleases us to-day, the
country to-morrow: the splendors of the court at one time, the horrors
of a wilderness at another, but all this while we carry our plague
about us; for it is not the place we are weary of, but ourselves. Nay,
our weakness extends to everything; for we are impatient equally of
toil and of pleasure. This trotting of the ring, and only treading
the same steps over and over again, has made many a man lay violent
hands upon himself. It must be the change of the mind, not of the
climate, that will remove the heaviness of the heart; our vices go
along with us, and we carry in ourselves the causes of our disquiets.
There is a great weight lies upon us, and the bare shocking of it
makes it the more uneasy; changing of countries, in this case, is not
travelling, but wandering. We must keep on our course, if we would gain
our journey’s end. “He that cannot live happily anywhere, will live
happily nowhere.” What is a man the better for travelling? as if his
cares could not find him out wherever he goes? Is there any retiring
from the fear of death, or of torments? or from those difficulties
which beset a man wherever he is? It is only philosophy that makes the
mind invincible, and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that
all her arrows fall short of us. This it is that reclaims the rage of
our lusts, and sweetens the anxiety of our fears. Frequent changing of
places or councils, shows an instability of mind; and we must fix the
body before we can fix the soul. We can hardly stir abroad, or look
about us, without encountering something or other that revives our
appetites. As he that would cast off an unhappy love avoids whatsoever
may put him in mind of the person, so he that would wholly deliver
himself from his beloved lusts must shun all objects that may put them
in his head again, and remind him of them. We travel, as children run
up and down after strange sights, for novelty, not profit; we return
neither the better nor the sounder; nay, and the very agitation hurts
us. We learn to call towns and places by their names, and to tell
stories of mountains and of rivers; but had not our time been better
spent in the study of wisdom and of virtue? in the learning of what
is already discovered, and in the quest of things not yet found out?
If a man break his leg, or strain his ankle, he sends presently for a
surgeon to set all right again, and does not take horse upon it, or put
himself on ship-board; no more does the change of place work upon our
disordered minds than upon our bodies. It is not the place, I hope,
that makes either an orator or a physician. Will any man ask upon the
road, Pray, which is the way to prudence, to justice, to temperance,
to fortitude? No matter whither any man goes that carries his
affections along with him. He that would make his travels delightful
must make himself a temperate companion.
A great traveller was complaining that he was never the better for his
travels; “That is very true,” said Socrates, “because you travelled
with yourself.” Now, had not he better have made himself another man
than to transport himself to another place? It is no matter what
manners we find anywhere; so long as we carry our own. But we have all
of us a natural curiosity of seeing fine sights, and of making new
discoveries, turning over antiquities, learning the customs of nations,
etc. We are never quiet; to-day we seek an office, to-morrow we are
sick of it. We divide our lives betwixt a dislike of the present and a
desire of the future: but he that lives as he should, orders himself
so, as neither to fear nor to wish for to-morrow; if it comes, it is
welcome; but if not, there is nothing lost; for that which is come, is
but the same over again with what is past. As levity is a pernicious
enemy to quiet, so pertinacity is a great one too. The one changes
nothing, the other sticks to nothing; and which of the two is the
worse, may be a question. It is many times seen, that we beg earnestly
for those things, which, if they were offered us, we would refuse; and
it is but just to punish this easiness of asking with an equal facility
of granting. There are some things we would be thought to desire, which
we are so far from desiring that we dread them. “I shall tire you,”
says one, in the middle of a tedious story. “Nay, pray be pleased to
go on,” we cry, though we wish his tongue out at half-way: nay, we do
not deal candidly even with God himself. We should say to ourselves
in these cases, “This I have drawn upon myself. I could never be quiet
until I had gotten this woman, this place, this estate, this honor, and
now see what is come of it.”
One sovereign remedy against all misfortunes is constancy of mind: the
changing of parties and countenances looks as if a man were driven with
the wind. Nothing can be above him that is above fortune. It is not
violence, reproach, contempt, or whatever else from without, that can
make a wise man quit his ground: but he is proof against calamities,
both great and small: only our error is, that what we cannot do
ourselves, we think nobody else can; so that we judge of the wise by
the measures of the weak. Place me among princes or among beggars, the
one shall not make me proud, nor the other ashamed. I can take as sound
a sleep in a barn as in a palace, and a bundle of hay makes me as good
a lodging as a bed of down. Should every day succeed to my wish, it
should not transport me; nor would I think myself miserable if I should
not have one quiet hour in my life. I will not transport myself with
either pain or pleasure; but yet for all that, I could wish that I had
an easier game to play, and that I were put rather to moderate my joys
than my sorrows. If I were an imperial prince, I had rather take than
be taken; and yet I would bear the same mind under the chariot of my
conqueror that I had in my own. It is no great matter to trample upon
those things that are most coveted or feared by the common people.
There are those that will laugh upon the wheel, and cast themselves
upon a certain death, only upon a transport of love, perhaps anger,
avarice, or revenge; how much more then upon an instinct of virtue,
which is invincible and steady! If a short obstinacy of mind can do
this, how much more shall a composed and deliberate virtue, whose force
is equal and perpetual.
To secure ourselves in this world, first, we must aim at nothing that
men count worth the wrangling for. Secondly, we must not value the
possession of any thing which even a common thief would think worth the
stealing. A man’s body is no booty. Let the way be never so dangerous
for robberies, the poor and the naked pass quietly. A plain-dealing
sincerity of manners makes a man’s life happy, even in despite of scorn
and contempt, which is every clear man’s fate. But we had better yet
be contemned for simplicity than lie perpetually upon the torture of
a counterfeit; provided that care be taken not to confound simplicity
with negligence; and it is, moreover, an uneasy life that of a
disguise; for a man to seem to be what he is not, to keep a perpetual
guard upon himself, and to live in fear of a discovery. He takes every
man that looks upon him for a spy, over and above the trouble of being
put to play another man’s part. It is a good remedy in some cases for
a man to apply himself to civil affairs and public business; and yet,
in this state of life too, what betwixt ambition and calumny, it is
hardly safe to be honest. There are, indeed, some cases wherein a wise
man will give way; but let him not yield over easily neither; if he
marches off, let him have a care of his honor, and make his retreat
with his sword in his hand, and his face to the enemy. Of all others, a
studious life is the least tiresome: it makes us easy to ourselves and
to others, and gains us both friends and reputation.