certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance. We sail on a vast
expanse, ever uncertain, ever drifting, hurried from one to the other
goal. If we think to attach ourselves firmly to any point, it totters
and fails us; if we follow, it eludes our grasp, and flies from
us, vanishing for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural
condition, yet always the most contrary to our inclination; we burn
with desire to find a steadfast place and an ultimate fixed basis
whereon we may build a tower to reach the infinite. But our whole
foundation breaks up, and earth opens to the abysses.
We may not then look for certainty or stability. Our reason is always
deceived by changing shows, nothing can fix the finite between the
two infinites, which at once enclose and fly from it.
If this be once well understood I think that we shall rest, each in
the state wherein nature has placed him. This element which falls to
us as our lot being always distant from either extreme, it matters
not that a man should have a trifle more knowledge of the universe.
If he has it, he but begins a little higher. He is always infinitely
distant from the end, and the duration of our life is infinitely
removed from eternity, even if it last ten years longer.
In regard to these infinites all finites are equal, and I see not why
we should fix our imagination on one more than on another. The only
comparison which we can make of ourselves to the finite troubles us.
Were man to begin with the study of himself, he would see how
incapable he is of proceeding further. How can a part know the
whole? But he may perhaps aspire to know at least the parts with
which he has proportionate relation. But the parts of the world are
so linked and related, that I think it impossible to know one without
another, or without the whole.
Man, for instance, is related to all that he knows. He needs place
wherein to abide, time through which to exist, motion in order to
live; he needs constituent elements, warmth and food to nourish him,
air to breathe. He sees light, he feels bodies, he contracts an
alliance with all that is.
To know man then it is necessary to understand how it comes that he
needs air to breathe, and to know the air we must understand how it
has relation to the life of man, etc.
Flame cannot exist without air, therefore to know one, we must know
the other.
All that exists then is both cause and effect, dependent and
supporting, mediate and immediate, and all is held together by a
natural though imperceptible bond, which unites things most distant
and most different. I hold it impossible to know the parts without
knowing the whole, or to know the whole without knowing the parts in
detail.
I hold it impossible to know one alone without all the others, that
is to say impossible purely and absolutely.
The eternity of things in themselves or in God must also confound
our brief duration. The fixed and constant immobility of Nature in
comparison with the continual changes which take place in us must
have the same effect.
And what completes our inability to know things is that they are in
their essence simple, whereas we are composed of two opposite natures
differing in kind, soul and body. For it is impossible that our
reasoning part should be other than spiritual; and should any allege
that we are simply material, this would far more exclude us from the
knowledge of things, since it is an inconceivable paradox to affirm
that matter can know itself, and it is not possible for us to know
how it should know itself.
So, were we simply material, we could know nothing whatever, and if
we are composed of spirit and matter we cannot perfectly know what is
simple, whether it be spiritual or material. For how should we know
matter distinctly, since our being, which acts on this knowledge, is
partly spiritual, and how should we know spiritual substances clearly
since we have a body which weights us, and drags us down to earth.
Moreover what completes our inability is the simplicity of things
compared with our double and complex nature. To dispute this point
were an invincible absurdity, for it is as absurd as impious to
deny that man is composed of two parts, differing in their nature,
soul and body. This renders us unable to know all things; for if
this complexity be denied, and it be asserted that we are entirely
material, it is plain that matter is incapable of knowing matter.
Nothing is more impossible than this.
Let us conceive then that this mixture of spirit and clay throws us
out of proportion....
Hence it comes that almost all philosophers have confounded different
ideas, and speak of material things in spiritual phrase, and of
spiritual things in material phrase. For they say boldly that bodies
have a tendency to fall, that they seek after their centre, that
they fly from destruction, that they fear a void, that they have
inclinations, sympathies, antipathies; and all of these are spiritual
qualities. Again, in speaking of spirits, they conceive of them as
in a given spot, or as moving from place to place; qualities which
belong to matter alone.
Instead of receiving the ideas of these things simply, we colour them
with our own qualities, and stamp with our complex being all the
simple things which we contemplate.
Who would not think, when we declare that all that is consists of
mind and matter, that we really understood this combination? Yet it
is the one thing we least understand. Man is to himself the most
marvellous object in Nature, for he cannot conceive what matter is,
still less what is mind, and less than all how a material body should
be united to a mind. This is the crown of all his difficulties,
yet it is his very being: _Modus quo corporibus adhæret spiritus
comprehendi ab homine non potest et hoc tamen homo est_.
These are some of the causes which render man so totally unable
to know nature. For nature has a twofold infinity, he is finite
and limited. Nature is permanent, and continues in one stay; he is
fleeting and mortal. All things fail and change each instant, he
sees them only as they pass, they have their beginning and end, he
conceives neither the one nor the other. They are simple, he is
composed of two different natures. And to complete the proof of our
weakness, I will finish by this reflection on our natural condition.
In a word, to complete the proof of our weakness, I will end with
these two considerations....
The nature of man may be considered in two ways, one according to
its end, and then it is great and incomparable; the other according
to popular opinion, as we judge of the nature of a horse or a dog,
by popular opinion which discerns in it the power of speed, _et
animum arcendi_; and then man is abject and vile. These are the two
ways which make us judge of it so differently and which cause such
disputes among philosophers.
For one denies the supposition of the other; one says, _He was not
born for such an end, for all his actions are repugnant to it_; the
other says, _He cannot gain his end when he commits base deeds_.
Two things instruct man about his whole nature, instinct and
experience.
_Inconstancy._--We think we are playing on ordinary organs when we
play upon man. Men are organs indeed, but fantastic, changeable,
and various, with pipes not arranged in due succession. Those who
understand only how to play upon ordinary organs make no harmonies on
these. We should know where are the....
_Nature._--Nature has placed us so truly in the centre, that if we
alter one side of the balance we alter also the other. This makes me
believe that there is a mechanism in our brain, so adjusted, that who
touches one touches also the contrary spring.
_Lustravit lampade terras._--The weather and my moods have little
in common. I have my foggy and my fine days within me, whether my
affairs go well or ill has little to do with the matter. I sometimes
strive against my luck, the glory of subduing it makes me subdue it
gaily, whereas I am sometimes wearied in the midst of my good luck.
It is difficult to submit anything to the judgment of a second
person without prejudicing him by the way in which we submit it. If
we say, "I think it beautiful, I think it obscure," or the like, we
either draw the imagination to that opinion, or irritate it to form
the contrary. It is better to say nothing, so that the other may
judge according to what really is, that is to say, as it then is,
and according as the other circumstances which are not of our making
have placed it. We at least shall have added nothing of our own,
except that silence produces an effect, according to the turn and
the interpretation which the other is inclined to give it, or as he
may conjecture it, from gestures or countenance, or from the tone of
voice, if he be a physiognomist; so difficult is it not to oust the
judgment from its natural seat, or rather so rarely is it firm and
stable!
The spirit of this sovereign judge of the world is not so independent
but that it is liable to be troubled by the first disturbance about
him. The noise of a cannon is not needed to break his train of
thought, it need only be the creaking of a weathercock or a pulley.
Do not be astonished if at this moment he argues incoherently, a fly
is buzzing about his ears, and that is enough to render him incapable
of sound judgment. Would you have him arrive at truth, drive away
that creature which holds his reason in check, and troubles that
powerful intellect which gives laws to towns and kingdoms. Here is a
droll kind of god! _O ridicolosissimo eroe!_
The power of flies, which win battles, hinder our soul from action,
devour our body.
When we are too young our judgment is at fault, so also when we are
too old.
If we take not thought enough, or too much, on any matter, we are
obstinate and infatuated.
He that considers his work so soon as it leaves his hands, is
prejudiced in its favour, he that delays his survey too long, cannot
regain the spirit of it.
So with pictures seen from too near or too far; there is but one
precise point from which to look at them, all others are too near or
too far, too high or too low. Perspective determines that precise
point in the art of painting. But who shall determine it in truth or
morals?
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the
eternity before and after, the small space which I fill, or even can
see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know
nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified, and wonder
that I am here rather than there, for there is no reason why here
rather than there, or now rather than then. Who has set me here? By
whose order and design have this place and time been destined for
me?--_Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis_.
It is not well to be too much at liberty. It is not well to have all
we want.
How many kingdoms know nothing of us!
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.
Nothing more astonishes me than to see that men are not astonished
at their own weakness. They act seriously, and every one follows his
own mode of life, not because it is, as a fact, good to follow, being
the custom, but as if each man knew certainly where are reason and
justice. They find themselves constantly deceived, and by an amusing
humility always imagine that the fault is in themselves, and not in
the art which all profess to understand. But it is well there are so
many of this kind of people in the world, who are not sceptics for
the glory of scepticism, to show that man is thoroughly capable of
the most extravagant opinions, because he is capable of believing
that his weakness is not natural and inevitable, but that, on the
contrary, his wisdom comes by nature.
Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are
not sceptics. If all were so, they would be wrong.
Two infinites, a mean. If we read too quickly or too slowly, we
understand nothing.
Too much and too little wine. Give a man none, he cannot find truth,
give him too much, the same.
Chance gives thoughts, and chance takes them away; there is no art
for keeping or gaining them.
A thought has escaped me. I would write it down. I write instead,
that it has escaped me.
In writing down my thought it now and then escapes me, but this
reminds me of my weakness, which I constantly forget. This teaches
me as much as my forgotten thought, for my whole study is to know my
nothingness.
Are men so strong, as to be insensible to all which affects them? Let
us try them in the loss of goods or honour. Ah! the charm is worked.
To fear death out of danger, and not in danger, for we must be men.
Sudden death is the only thing to fear, therefore confessors live in
the houses of the great.
We know ourselves so little, that many think themselves near death
when they are perfectly well, and many think themselves well when
they are near death, since they do not feel the fever at hand, or the
abscess about to form.
Why is my knowledge so restricted, or my height, or my life to a
hundred years rather than to a thousand? What was nature's reason for
giving me such length of days, and for choosing this number rather
than another, in that infinity where there is no reason to choose one
more than another, since none is preferable to another?
The nature of man is not always to go forward, it has its advances
and retreats.
Fever has its hot and cold fits, and the cold proves as well as the
hot how great is the force of the fever.
The inventions of men from age to age follow the same plan. It is the
same with the goodness and the wickedness of the world in general.
_Plerumque gratæ principibus vices._
The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his occasional
efforts, but by his ordinary life.
Those great spiritual efforts to which the soul sometimes attains are
things on which it takes no permanent hold. It leaps to them, not as
to a throne, for ever, but only for an instant.
I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, unless I see at
the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas,
who had exceeding valour and exceeding humanity, for otherwise we do
not rise, but fall. Grandeur is not shown by being at one extremity,
but in touching both at once, and filling the whole space between.
But perhaps this is only a sudden motion of the soul from one to the
other extreme, and in fact it is always at one point only, as when a
firebrand is whirled. Be it so, but at least this marks the agility
if not the magnitude of the soul.
We do not remain virtuous by our own power, but by the counterpoise
of two opposite vices, we remain standing as between two contrary
winds; take away one of these vices, we fall into the other.
When we would pursue the virtues to their extremes on either side,
vices present themselves, which insinuate themselves insensibly
there, in their insensible course towards the infinitely great, so
that we lose ourselves in vices, and no longer see virtues.
It is not shameful to man to yield to pain, and it is shameful to
yield to pleasure. This is not because pain comes from without
us, while we seek pleasure, for we may seek pain, and yield to it
willingly without this kind of baseness. How comes it then that
reason finds it glorious in us to yield under the assaults of
pain, and shameful to yield under the assaults of pleasure? It is
because pain does not tempt and attract us. We ourselves choose it
voluntarily, and will that it have dominion over us. We are thus
masters of the situation, and so far man yields to himself, but in
pleasure man yields to pleasure. Now only mastery and empire bring
glory, and only slavery causes shame.
All things may prove fatal to us, even those made to serve us, as
in nature walls may kill us and stairs may kill us, if we walk not
aright.
The slightest movement affects all nature, the whole sea changes
because of a rock. Thus in grace, the most trifling action has effect
on everything by its consequences; therefore everything is important.
Provided we know each man's ruling passion we are sure of pleasing
him; yet each man has his fancies, contrary to his real good, even in
the very idea he forms of good; a strange fact which puts all out of
tune.
When our passions lead us to any act we forget our duty. If we
like a book we read it, when we should be doing something else.
But as a reminder we ought to propose to ourselves to do something
distasteful; we then excuse ourselves that we have something else to
do, and thus remember our duty.
Sneezing absorbs all the faculties of the soul, as do certain bodily
functions, but we do not draw therefrom the same conclusions against
the greatness of man, because it is against his will. And if we make
ourselves sneeze we do so against our will. It is not in view of
the act itself, but for another end, and so it is not a mark of the
weakness of man, and of his slavery to that act.
Scaramouch, who thinks of one thing only.
The doctor, who speaks for a quarter of an hour after he has said all
he has to say, so full is he of the desire of talking.
The parrot's beak, which he dries though it is clean already.
The sense of falseness in present pleasures, and our ignorance of the
vanity of absent pleasures, are the causes of inconstancy.
He no longer loves the person he loved ten years ago. I can well
believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and
so was she; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her still
were she what she then was.
Reasons, seen from afar, appear to restrict our view, but not when we
reach them; we begin to see beyond.
... We look at things not only from other sides, but with other eyes,
and care not to find them alike.
Diversity is so ample, that all tones of voice, all modes of walking,
coughing, blowing the nose, sneering. We distinguish different kinds
of vine by their fruit, and name them the Condrieu, the Desargues,
and this stock. But is this all? Has a vine ever produced two bunches
exactly alike, and has a bunch ever two grapes alike? etc.
I never can judge of the same thing exactly in the same way. I cannot
judge of my work while engaged on it. I must do as the painters,
stand at a distance, but not too far. How far, then? Guess.
_Diversity._--Theology is a science; but at the same time how many
sciences! Man is a whole, but if we dissect him, will man be the
head, the heart, the stomach, the veins, each vein, each portion of a
vein, the blood, each humour of the blood?
A town, a champaign, is from afar a town and a champaign; but as we
approach there are houses, trees, tiles, leaves, grass, emmets, limbs
of emmets, in infinite series. All this is comprised under the word
champaign.
We like to see the error, the passion of Cleobuline, because she is
not aware of it. She would be displeasing if she were not deceived.
What a confusion of judgment is that, by which every one puts himself
above all the rest of the world, and loves his own advantage and the
duration of his happiness or his life above those of all others.
_DIVERSION._
Diversion.--When I have set myself now and then to consider the
various distractions of men, the toils and dangers to which they
expose themselves in the court or the camp, whence arise so many
quarrels and passions, such daring and often such evil exploits,
etc., I have discovered that all the misfortunes of men arise from
one thing only, that they are unable to stay quietly in their own
chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to dwell
with pleasure in his own home, would not leave it for sea-faring
or to besiege a city. An office in the army would not be bought so
dearly but that it seems insupportable not to stir from the town, and
people only seek conversation and amusing games because they cannot
remain with pleasure in their own homes.
But upon stricter examination, when, having found the cause of all
our ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found
one which is paramount, the natural evil of our weak and mortal
condition, so miserable that nothing can console us when we think of
it attentively.
Whatever condition we represent to ourselves, if we bring to our
minds all the advantages it is possible to possess, Royalty is the
finest position in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king surrounded
with all the conditions which he can desire, if he be without
diversion, and be allowed to consider and examine what he is, this
feeble happiness will never sustain him; he will necessarily fall
into a foreboding of maladies which threaten him, of revolutions
which may arise, and lastly, of death and inevitable diseases; so
that if he be without what is called diversion he is unhappy, and
more unhappy than the humblest of his subjects who plays and diverts
himself.
Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war, and offices
of state, are so sought after. Not that there is in these any real
happiness, or that any imagine true bliss to consist in the money won
at play, or in the hare which is hunted; we would not have these as
gifts. We do not seek an easy and peaceful lot which leaves us free
to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the
troubles of statecraft, but seek rather the distraction which amuses
us, and diverts our mind from these thoughts.
Hence it comes that men so love noise and movement, hence it comes
that a prison is so horrible a punishment, hence it comes that the
pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is the great
subject of happiness in the condition of kings, that all about them
try incessantly to divert them, and to procure for them all manner of
pleasures.
The king is surrounded by persons who think only how to divert the
king, and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is unhappy, king
though he be, if he think of self.
That is all that human ingenuity can do for human happiness. And
those who philosophise on the matter, and think men unreasonable
that they pass a whole day in hunting a hare which they would not
have bought, scarce know our nature. The hare itself would not free
us from the view of death and our miseries, but the chase of the
hare does free us. Thus, when we make it a reproach that what they
seek with such eagerness cannot satisfy them, if they answered as on
mature judgment they should do, that they sought in it only violent
and impetuous occupation to turn their thoughts from self, and that
therefore they made choice of an attractive object which charms and
ardently attracts them, they would leave their adversaries without a
reply. But they do not so answer because they do not know themselves;
they do not know they seek the chase and not the quarry.
They fancy that were they to gain such and such an office they would
then rest with pleasure, and are unaware of the insatiable nature of
their desire. They believe they are honestly seeking repose, but they
are only seeking agitation.
They have a secret instinct prompting them to look for diversion
and occupation from without, which arises from the sense of their
continual pain. They have another secret instinct, a relic of the
greatness of our primitive nature, teaching them that happiness
indeed consists in rest, and not in turmoil. And of these two
contrary instincts a confused project is formed within them,
concealing itself from their sight in the depths of their soul,
leading them to aim at rest through agitation, and always to imagine
that they will gain the satisfaction which as yet they have not, if
by surmounting certain difficulties which now confront them, they may
thereby open the door to rest.
Thus rolls all our life away. We seek repose by resistance to
obstacles, and so soon as these are surmounted, repose becomes
intolerable. For we think either on the miseries we feel or on those
we fear. And even when we seem sheltered on all sides, weariness, of
its own accord, will spring from the depths of the heart wherein are
its natural roots, and fill the soul with its poison.
The counsel given to Pyrrhus to take the rest of which he was going
in search through so many labours, was full of difficulties.
A gentleman sincerely believes that the chase is a great, and even a
royal sport, but his whipper-in does not share his opinion.
_Dancing._--We must think where to place our feet.