CONSTANCY OF MIND GIVES A MAN REPUTATION, AND MAKES HIM HAPPY IN
DESPITE OF ALL MISFORTUNE.
The whole duty of man may be reduced to the two points of _abstinence_
and _patience_; _temperance_ in _prosperity_, and _courage_ in
_adversity_. We have already treated of the former: and the other
follows now in course.
Epicurus will have it, that a wise man will _bear all injuries_; but
the Stoics will not allow those things to be _injuries_ which Epicurus
calls so. Now, betwixt _these two_, there is the same difference that
we find betwixt two _gladiators_; the one receives wounds, but yet
maintains his ground, the other tells the people, when he is in blood,
that _it is but a scratch_, and will not suffer anybody to part them.
An _injury_ cannot be received, but it must be _done_; but it may be
_done_ and yet not _received_; as a man may be in the water, and not
swim, but if he swims, it is presumed that he is in the water. Or if
a blow or a shot be levelled at us, it may so happen that a man may
miss his aim, or some accident interpose that may divert the mischief.
That which is hurt is passive, and inferior to that which hurts it.
But you will say, that Socrates was condemned and put to death, and
so received an injury; but I answer, that the tyrants _did_ him an
injury, and yet he _received_ none. He that steals anything from me
and hides it in my own house, though I have not lost it, yet he has
stolen it. He that lies with his own wife, and takes her for another
woman, though the woman be honest, the man is an adulterer. Suppose a
man gives me a draught of poison and it proves not strong enough to
kill me, his guilt is nevertheless for the disappointment. He that
makes a pass at me is as much a murderer, though I put it by, as if he
had struck me to the heart. It is the intention, not the effect, that
makes the wickedness. He is a thief that has the will of killing and
slaying, before his hand is dipt in blood; as it is sacrilege, the very
intention of laying violent hands upon holy things. If a philosopher
be exposed to torments, the ax over his head, his body wounded, his
guts in his hands, I will allow him to groan; for virtue itself cannot
divest him of the nature of a man; but if his mind stand firm, he has
discharged his part. A great mind enables a man to maintain his station
with honor; so that he only makes use of what he meets in his way, as a
pilgrim that would fain be at his journey’s end.
It is the excellency of a great mind to _ask_ nothing, and to _want_
nothing; and to say, “I will have nothing to do with fortune, that
repulses Cato, and prefers Vatinius.” He that quits his hold,
and accounts anything good that is not honest, runs gaping after
casualties, spends his days in anxiety and vain expectation, that
man is miserable. And yet it is hard, you will say, to be banished
or cast into prison: nay, what if it were to be burnt, or any other
way destroyed? We have examples in all ages and cases, of great men
that have triumphed over all misfortunes. Metellus suffered exile
resolutely, Rutilius cheerfully; Socrates disputed in the dungeon; and
though he might have made his escape, refused it; to show the world how
easy a thing it was to subdue the two great terrors of mankind, _death_
and a _jail_. Or what shall we say of Mucius Scevola, a man only of
a military courage, and without the help either of philosophy or
letters? who, when he found that he had killed the Secretary instead of
Porsenna, (the prince,) burnt his right hand to ashes for the mistake;
and held his arm in the flame until it was taken away by his very
enemies. Porsenna did more easily pardon Mucius for his intent to kill
him than Mucius forgave _himself_ for missing of his aim. He might have
a luckier thing, but never a braver.
Did not Cato, in the last night of his life, take Plato to bed with
him, with his sword at his bed’s head; the one that he might have death
at his will, the other, that he might have it in his power; being
resolved that no man should be able to say, either that he killed or
that he saved Cato? So soon as he had composed his thoughts, he took
his sword; “Fortune,” says he, “I have hitherto fought for my country’s
liberty, and for my own, and only that I might live free among freemen;
but the cause is now lost, and Cato safe.” With that word he cast
himself upon his sword; and after the physicians that pressed in upon
him had bound up his wound, he tore it up again, and expired with the
same greatness of soul that he lived. But these are the examples, you
will say, of men famous in their generations.
Let us but consult history, and we shall find, even in the most
effeminate of nations, and the most dissolute of times, men of all
degrees, ages, and fortunes, nay, even women themselves, that have
overcome the fear of death: which, in truth, is so little to be
feared, that duly considered, it is one of the greatest benefits of
nature. It was as great an honor for Cato, when his party was broken,
that he himself stood his ground, as it would have been if he had
carried the day, and settled an universal peace: for, it is an equal
prudence, to make the best of a bad game, and to manage a good one. The
day that he was _repulsed_, he _played_, and the night that he _killed_
himself, he _read_, as valuing the loss of his life, and the missing of
an office at the same rate. People, I know, are apt to pronounce upon
other men’s infirmities by the measure of their own, and to think it
impossible that a man should be content to be burnt, wounded, killed,
or shackled, though in some cases he may. It is only for a great mind
to judge of great things; for otherwise, that which is our infirmity
will seem to be another body’s, as a straight stick in the water
appears to be crooked: he that yields, draws upon his own head his
own ruin; for we are sure to get the better of Fortune, if we do but
struggle with her. Fencers and wrestlers, we see what blows and bruises
they endure, not only for honor, but for exercise. If we turn our backs
once, we are routed and pursued; that man only is happy that draws
good out of evil, that stands fast in his judgment, and unmoved by any
external violence; or however, so little moved, that the keenest arrow
in the quiver of Fortune is but as the prick of a needle to him rather
than a wound; and all her other weapons fall upon him only as hail upon
the roof of a house, that crackles and skips off again, without any
damage to the inhabitant.
A generous and clear-sighted young man will take it for a happiness to
encounter ill fortune. It is nothing for a man to hold up his head in
a calm; but to maintain his post when all others have quitted their
ground, and there to stand upright where other men are beaten down,
this is divine and praiseworthy. What ill is there in torments, or in
those things which we commonly account grievous crosses? The great evil
is the want of courage, the bowing and submitting to them, which can
never happen to a wise man; for he stands upright under any weight;
nothing that is to be borne displeases him; he knows his strength, and
whatsoever may be any man’s lot, he never complains of, if it be his
own. Nature, he says, deceives nobody; she does not tell us whether
our children shall be fair or foul, wise or foolish, good subjects or
traitors, nor whether our fortune shall be good or bad. We must not
judge of a man by his ornaments, but strip him of all the advantages
and the impostures of Fortune, nay, of his very body too, and look into
his mind. If he can see a naked sword at his eyes without so much as
winking; if he make it a thing indifferent to him whether his life go
out at his throat or at his mouth; if he can hear himself sentenced to
torments or exiles, and under the very hand of the executioner, says
thus to himself, “All this I am provided for, and it is no more than
a man that is to suffer the fate of humanity.” This is the temper of
mind that speaks a man happy; and without this, all the confluences
of external comforts signify no more than the personating of a king
upon the stage; when the curtain is drawn, we are players again. Not
that I pretend to exempt a wise man out of a number of men, as if he
had no sense of pain; but I reckon him as compounded of body and soul;
the body is irrational, and may be galled, burnt, tortured; but the
rational part is fearless, invincible, and not to be shaken. This
it is that I reckon upon as the supreme good of man; which until it
be perfected, is but an unsteady agitation of thought, and in the
perfection an immovable stability. It is not in our contentions with
Fortune as in those of the theatre, where we may throw down our arms,
and pray for quarter; but here we must die firm and resolute. There
needs no encouragement to those things which we are inclined to by
a natural instinct, as the preservation of ourselves with ease and
pleasure; but if it comes to the trial of our faith by torments, or of
our courage by wounds, these are difficulties that we must be armed
against by philosophy and precept; and yet all this is no more than
what we were born to, and no matter of wonder at all; so that a wise
man prepares himself for it, as expecting whatsoever _may be will be_.
My body is frail, and liable not only to the impressions of violence,
but to afflictions also, that naturally succeed our pleasures. Full
meals bring crudities; whoring and drinking make the hands to shake
and the knees to tremble. It is only the surprise and newness of the
thing which makes that misfortune terrible, which, by premeditation,
might be made easy to us: for that which some people make light by
sufferance, others do by foresight. Whatsoever is necessary, we must
bear patiently. It is no new thing to die, no new thing to mourn, and
no new thing to be merry again. Must I be _poor_? I shall have company:
in _banishment_? I will think myself born there. If I _die_, I shall be
no more sick; and it is a thing I cannot do but once.
Let us never wonder at anything we are born to; for no man has reason
to complain, where we are all in the same condition. He that escapes
might have suffered; and it is but equal to submit to the law of
mortality. We must undergo the colds of winter, the heats of summer;
the distempers of the air, and the diseases of the body. A wild beast
meets us in one place, and a man that is more brutal in another; we
are here assaulted by fire, there by water. Demetrius was reserved by
Providence for the age he lived in, to show, that neither the times
could corrupt him, nor he reform the people. He was a man of an exact
judgment, steady to his purpose, and of a strong eloquence; not finical
in his words, but his sense was masculine and vehement. He was so
qualified in his life and discourse, that he served both for an example
and a reproach. If fortune should have offered that man the government
and possession of the whole world, upon condition not to lay it down
again, I dare say he would have refused it: and thus have expostulated
the matter with you: “Why should you tempt a freeman to put his
shoulder under a burden; or an honest man to pollute himself with the
dregs of mankind? Why do you offer me the spoils of princes, and of
nations, and the price not only of your blood, but of your souls?”
It is the part of a great mind to be temperate in prosperity,
resolute in adversity; to despise what the vulgar admire, and to
prefer a mediocrity to an excess. Was not Socrates oppressed with
poverty, labor, nay, the worst of wars in his own family, a fierce
and turbulent woman for his wife? were not his children indocile, and
like their mother? After seven-and-twenty years spent in arms, he
fell under a slavery to the _thirty tyrants_, and most of them his
bitter enemies: he came at last to be sentenced as “a violater of
religion, a corrupter of youth, and a common enemy to God and man.”
After this he was imprisoned, and put to death by poison, which was
all so far from working upon his mind, that it never so much as altered
his countenance. We are to bear ill accidents as unkind seasons,
distempers, or diseases; and why may we not reckon the actions of
wicked men even among those accidents; their deliberations are not
counsels but frauds, snares, and inordinate motions of the mind; and
they are never without a thousand pretences and occasions of doing a
man mischief. They have their informers, their knights of the post;
they can make an interest with powerful men, and one may be robbed
as well upon the bench as upon the highway. They lie in wait for
advantages, and live in perpetual agitation betwixt hope and fear;
whereas he that is truly composed will stand all shocks, either of
violences, flatteries, or menaces, without perturbation. It is an
inward fear that makes us curious after what we hear abroad.
It is an error to attribute either _good_ or _ill_ to _Fortune_; but
the _matter_ of it we may; and we ourselves are the occasion of it,
being in effect the artificers of our own happiness or misery: for the
mind is above fortune; if that be evil, it makes everything else so
too; but if it be right and sincere, it corrects what is wrong, and
mollifies what is hard, with modesty and courage. There is a great
difference among those that the world calls wise men. Some take up
private resolutions of opposing Fortune, but they cannot go through
with them; for they are either dazzled with splendor on the one hand,
or affrighted with terrors on the other; but there are others that will
close and grapple with Fortune, and still come off victorious.
Mucius overcame the fire; Regulus, the gibbet; Socrates, poison;
Rutilius, banishment; Cato, death; Fabricius, riches; Tubero, poverty;
and Sextius, honors. But there are some again so delicate, that they
cannot so much as bear a scandalous report; which is the same thing
as if a man should quarrel for being jostled in a crowd, or dashed as
he walks in the streets. He that has a great way to go must expect a
slip, to stumble, and to be tired. To the luxurious man frugality is a
punishment; labor and industry to the sluggard; nay, study itself is a
torment to him; not that these things are hard to us by nature, but we
ourselves are vain and irresolute; nay, we wonder many of us, how any
man can live without wine, or endure to rise so early in a morning.
A brave man must expect to be tossed; for he is to steer his course
in the teeth of Fortune, and to work against wind and weather. In the
suffering of torments, though there appears but one virtue, a man
exercises many. That which is most eminent is patience, (which is but a
branch of fortitude.) But there is prudence also in the choice of the
action, and in the bearing what we cannot avoid; and there is constancy
in bearing it resolutely: and there is the same concurrence also of
several virtues in other generous undertakings.
When Leonidas was to carry his 300 men into the Straits of Thermopylæ,
to put a stop to Xerxes’s huge army: “Come, fellow-soldiers,” says he,
“eat your dinners here as if you were to sup in another world.” And
they answered his resolution. How plain and imperious was that short
speech of Cæditius to his men upon a desperate action! and how glorious
a mixture was there in it both of bravery and prudence! “Soldiers,”
says he, “it is necessary for us to go, but it is not necessary for us
to return.” This brief and pertinent harangue was worth ten thousand
of the frivolous cavils and distinctions of the schools, which rather
break the mind than fortify it; and when it is once perplexed and
pricked with difficulties and scruples, there they leave it. Our
passions are numerous and strong, and not to be mastered with quirks
and tricks, as if a man should undertake to defend the cause of God
and man with a bulrush. It was a remarkable piece of honor and policy
together, that action of Cæsar’s upon the taking of Pompey’s cabinet at
the battle of Pharsalia: it is probable that the letters in it might
have discovered who were his friends, and who his enemies; and yet he
burnt it without so much as opening it; esteeming it the noblest way
of pardoning, to keep himself ignorant both of the offender and of
the offense. It was a brave presence of mind also in Alexander, who,
upon advice that his physician Philip intended to poison him, took
the letter of advice in one hand and the cup in the other; delivering
Philip the letter to read while he himself drank the potion.
Some are of opinion that death gives a man courage to support pain,
and that pain fortifies a man against death: but I say rather, that a
wise man depends upon himself against both, and that he does not either
suffer with patience, in hopes of death, or die willingly, because he
is weary of life; but he bears the one, and waits for the other, and
carries a divine mind through all the accidents of human life. He looks
upon faith and honesty as the most sacred good of mankind, and neither
to be forced by necessity nor corrupted by reward; kill, burn, tear him
in pieces, he will be true to his trust; and the more any man labors
to make him discover a secret, the deeper will he hide it. Resolution
is the inexpugnable defence of human weakness, and it is a wonderful
Providence that attends it.
Horatius Cocles opposed his single body to the whole army until the
bridge was cut down behind him and then leaped into the river with his
sword in his hand and came off safe to his party. There was a fellow
questioned about a plot upon the life of a tyrant, and put to the
torture to declare his confederates: he named, by one and one, all the
tyrant’s friends that were about him: and still as they were named,
they were put to death: the tyrant asked him at last if there were any
more. “Yes,” says he, “yourself were in the plot; and now you have
never another friend left in the world:” whereupon the tyrant cut the
throats of his own guards. “He is the happy man that is the master of
himself, and triumphs over the fear of death, which has overcome the
conquerors of the world.”