boasting to-morrow among his friends that he has played better
than another. Thus others sweat in their closets to prove to the
learned world that they have solved an algebraical problem hitherto
insoluble, while many more expose themselves to the greatest perils,
in my judgment as foolishly, for the glory of taking a town. Again,
others kill themselves, by their very application to all these
studies, not indeed that they may grow wiser, but simply to prove
that they know them; these are the most foolish of the band, because
they are so wittingly, whereas it is reasonable to suppose of the
others, that were they but aware of it, they would give over their
folly.
A man passes his life without weariness in playing every day for a
small stake. Give him each morning, on condition he does not play,
the money he might possibly win, and you make him miserable. It will
be said, perhaps, that he seeks the amusement of play, and not the
winnings. Make him then play for nothing, he will not be excited over
it, and will soon be wearied. Mere diversion then is not his pursuit,
a languid and passionless amusement will weary him. He must grow
warm in it, and cheat himself by thinking that he is made happy by
gaining what he would despise if it were given him not to play; and
must frame for himself a subject of passion and excitement to employ
his desire, his wrath, his fear, as children are frightened at a face
they themselves have daubed.
Whence comes it that a man who within a few months has lost his
only son, or who this morning was overwhelmed with law suits and
wrangling, now thinks of them no more? Be not surprised; he is
altogether taken up with looking out for the boar which his hounds
have been hunting so hotly for the last six hours. He needs no more.
However full of sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if
you can only get him to enter into some diversion. And however happy
a man may be, he will soon become dispirited and miserable if he be
not diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit which hinders
his being overcome by weariness. Without diversion no joy, with
diversion no sadness. And this forms the happiness of persons in high
position, that they have a number of people to divert them, and that
they have the power to keep themselves in this state.
Take heed to this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first
president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a vast
number of persons flock in from every side, so as not to leave them
an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves? And if they
are in disgrace and dismissed to their country houses, though they
want neither wealth nor retinue at need, they yet are miserable and
desolate because no one hinders them from thinking of themselves.
Thus man is so unhappy that he wearies himself without cause of
weariness by the peculiar state of his temperament, and he is so
frivolous that, being full of a thousand essential causes of
weariness, the least thing, such as a cue and a ball to strike with
it, is enough to divert him.
_Diversions._--Men are charged from infancy with the care of their
honour, their fortunes, and their friends, and more, with the care
of the fortunes and honour of their friends. They are overwhelmed
with business, with the study of languages and bodily exercises;
they are given to understand that they cannot be happy unless their
health, their honour, their fortune and that of their friends be in
good condition, and that a single point wanting will render them
unhappy. Thus we give them business and occupations which harass them
incessantly from the very dawn of day. A strange mode, you will say,
of making them happy. What more could be done to make them miserable?
What could be done? We need only release them from all these cares,
for then they would see themselves; they would think on what they
are, whence they come, and whither they go, and therefore it is
impossible to occupy and distract them too much. This is why, after
having provided them with constant business, if there be any time to
spare we urge them to employ it in diversion and in play, so as to be
always fully occupied.
How comes it that this man, distressed at the death of his wife and
his only son, or who has some great and embarrassing law suit, is not
at this moment sad, and that he appears so free from all painful and
distressing thoughts? We need not be astonished, for a ball has just
been served to him, and he must return it to his opponent. His whole
thoughts are fixed on taking it as it falls from the pent-house, to
win a chase; and you cannot ask that he should think on his business,
having this other affair in hand. Here is a care worthy of occupying
this great soul, and taking away from him every other thought of the
mind. This man, born to know the Universe, to judge of all things, to
rule a State, is altogether occupied and filled with the business of
catching a hare. And if he will not abase himself to this, and wishes
always to be highly strung, he will only be more foolish still,
because he wishes to raise himself above humanity; yet when all is
said and done he is only a man, that is to say capable of little and
of much, of all and of nothing. He is neither angel nor brute, but
man.
One thought alone occupies us, we cannot think of two things at once;
a good thing for us from a worldly point of view, but not as regards
God.
_Diversion._--Death is easier to bear without the thought of it, than
is the thought of death without danger.
_Diversion._--Men, unable to remedy death, sorrow, and ignorance,
determine, in order to make themselves happy, not to think on these
things.
Notwithstanding these miseries, man wishes to be happy, and wishes
for happiness only; unable to wish otherwise, he knows not how to
gain happiness. For this he must needs make himself immortal; but
unable to effect this, he sets himself to avoid the thought of death.
The miseries of human life are the cause of all this; having a
perception of them men take to diversion.
_Diversion._--If man were happy he would be the more so the less he
was diverted, like the Saints and God.
Yes: but is not the power of being pleased with diversion in itself
a happiness? No; for that comes from elsewhere and from without, so
it is dependent, and therefore liable to be troubled by a thousand
accidents, which make afflictions inevitable.
_Misery._--The one thing which consoles us for our miseries is
diversion, yet this itself is the greatest of our miseries. For
this it is which mainly hinders us from thinking of ourselves, and
which insensibly destroys us. Without this we should be weary, and
weariness would drive us to seek a more abiding way out of it. But
diversion beguiles us and leads us insensibly onward to death.
This is all they have been able to discover to console them in so
many evils. But it is a miserable consolation, since it does not
serve for the cure of the evil, but simply for the concealment of
it for a short time, and its very concealment prevents the thought
of any true cure. Thus by a strange inversion of man's nature he
finds that the weariness which is his most sensible evil, is in
some measure his greatest good, because more than any thing else it
contributes to make him seek his true healing, and that the diversion
which he regards as his greatest good is in fact his greatest evil,
because more than any thing else it prevents his seeking the remedy
for his evils. Both of these are admirable proofs of man's misery and
corruption, and at the same time of his greatness, since man is only
weary of all things, and only seeks this multitude of occupations
because he has the idea of a lost happiness. And not finding this in
himself, he seeks it vainly in external things, without being able to
content himself, because it is neither in us, nor in the creature,
but in God alone.
_Thoughts._--_In omnibus requiem quæsivi._
Were our condition truly happy we need not turn our minds from it in
order to become happy.
A little matter consoles us, because a little matter afflicts us.
Strife alone pleases us and not the victory. We like to see beasts
fighting, not the victor furious over the vanquished. We wish only to
see the victorious end, and as soon as it comes, we are surfeited. It
is the same in play, and in the search for truth. In all disputes we
like to see the clash of opinions, but care not at all to contemplate
truth when found. If we are to see truth with pleasure, we must see
it arise out of conflict.
So in the passions, there is pleasure in seeing the shock of two
contraries, but as soon as one gains the mastery it becomes mere
brutality. We never seek things in themselves, but only the search
for things. So on the stage, quiet scenes which raise no emotion are
worthless, so is extreme and hopeless misery, so are brutal lust and
excessive cruelty.
Continuous eloquence wearies.
Princes and kings sometimes unbend. They are not for ever on
their thrones, where they grow weary. Grandeur to be felt must be
abandoned, continuity in any thing is displeasing. Cold is pleasant,
that we may seek warmth.
_Weariness._--Nothing is so insupportable to man as to be completely
at rest, without passion, without business, without diversion,
without study. He then feels his nothingness, his loneliness, his
insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness.
At once, from the depth of his soul, will arise weariness, gloom,
sadness, vexation, disappointment, despair.
_Agitation._--When a soldier complains of his work, or a ploughman,
etc., force them to be idle.
_Diversion._--Is not the royal dignity itself so truly great as to
make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation of what he is?
Must he be diverted from this thought like ordinary people? I see
well enough that a man may be made happy by diverting him from the
thought of his domestic sorrows so that he apply all his care to
excel in dancing. But will it be the same with a king, and will he be
happier if he devote himself to these idle amusements rather than to
the contemplation of his greatness? And what more satisfactory object
can he offer to his mind? Might it not be to lessen his content that
he occupy his soul in thinking how to suit his steps to the cadence
of an air, or how to throw a bar skilfully, rather than allow it to
enjoy peacefully the contemplation of the majesty which wraps him
round? Let us make the experiment, let us leave a king all alone,
without any gratifications of sense, or any occupation for the mind,
without companions, reflecting on himself at leisure, and it will be
seen that a king without diversion is a man full of miseries. This is
therefore carefully avoided, and there are always about the persons
of kings a great number of people who watch to see that diversion
succeeds to business, and look after their every hour of leisure to
furnish them with pleasures and games, so that no vacancy may be
left in life; that is, they are surrounded with persons who take
wonderful pains that the king is never alone and able to think of
self, knowing well that he will be miserable, king though he is, if
he think of self.
In all this I am not speaking of Christian kings as Christians, but
simply as kings.
Men busy themselves in pursuing a ball or a hare, and this is the
pleasure even of kings.
Cæsar, as it seems to me, was too old to set about amusing himself
with the conquest of the world. Such a pastime was good for Augustus
or Alexander, who were still young men, and these are difficult to
restrain, but Cæsar should have been more mature.
The weariness we experience in leaving occupations to which we are
attached. A man lives with pleasure in his home, but if he see a
woman who charms him, or if he take pleasure in play for five or
six days, he is miserable if he return to his former mode of life.
Nothing is more common than that.
_Frivolity._--It is plain that the frivolity of the world is so
little known, that it is a strange and surprising thing to say it is
foolish to seek for greatness, and this is great cause for wonder.
Whoso does not see the frivolity of the world is himself most
frivolous. And indeed all see it save young people, who are engaged
in turmoil, diversion, and the thought of the future. But take away
their diversion and you will see them consumed with weariness; then
they feel their nothingness without knowing it. For it is indeed to
be unhappy to be intolerably sad as soon as we are reduced to the
thought of self, without any diversion.
_THE GREATNESS AND LITTLENESS OF MAN._
Greatness, _Littleness_.--The more light we have, the more greatness
and the more baseness we discover in man.
Ordinary men....
The more cultivated....
Philosophers.
They astonish ordinary men.
Christians. They astonish Philosophers.
Who then will be surprised to see that Religion only makes us know
deeply what we already know in proportion to our light.
_For Port Royal. Greatness and Littleness._
Littleness being correlative to greatness, and greatness to
littleness, some have inferred man's littleness all the more because
they have taken his greatness as a proof of it, and others have
inferred his greatness with all the more force, because they have
inferred it from his littleness; all that the one party was able
to say for his greatness having served only as an argument of his
littleness to others, because we are low in proportion to the height
from which we have fallen, and the contrary is equally true. So that
the one party returns on the other in an endless circle, for it is
certain that in measure as men possess light the more they discern
both the greatness and the littleness of man. In a word, man knows he
is little. He is then little because he is so; but he is truly great
because he knows it.
Man knows not in what rank to place himself. He has evidently gone
astray and fallen from his true place, unable to find it again.
Disquieted and unsuccessful he seeks it everywhere in impenetrable
darkness.
Though we see all the miseries which close upon us and take us by the
throat, we have an irrepressible instinct which raises us.
_The greatness of Man._--We have so great an idea of the human soul
that we cannot bear to be despised, or to lie under the disesteem of
any soul, and all the happiness of men consists in that esteem.
The search after glory is the greatest vileness of man. Yet it is
also the greatest mark of his excellence, for whatever riches he may
have on earth, whatever health and advantage, he is not satisfied if
he have not the esteem of men. He rates human reason so highly that
whatever privileges he may have on earth, he is not content unless
he stand well in the judgment of men. This is the finest position in
the world, nothing can turn him from this desire, which is the most
indelible quality of the human heart.
And those who most despise men, and place them on the level of the
brutes, still wish to be admired and believed by men, and are in
contradiction with themselves through their own feelings; their
nature, which is stronger than all else, convincing them of the
greatness of man more powerfully than reason convinces them of their
vileness.
The vileness of man in that he submits himself to the brutes, and
even worships them.
Instinct and reason, marks of two natures.
Description of man. Dependence, desire of independence, bodily needs.
Contradiction. To despise existence, to die for nothing, to hate our
existence.
Man is neither angel nor brute, and the misfortune is that whoever
would play the angel plays the brute.
If man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God?
If man is made for God, why is he so contrary to God?
Contraries. Man is naturally credulous and incredulous, timid and
rash.
_A corrupt nature._--Man does not act by reason, which constitutes
his essence.
The nature of man is his whole nature, _omne animal_.
There is nothing we cannot make natural, nothing natural we cannot
lose.
The true nature being lost, all becomes natural. As the true good
being lost, all becomes truly good.
_Misery._--Solomon and Job best knew, and have best spoken of
human misery; the former the most fortunate, the latter the most
unfortunate of men; the one knowing by experience the vanity of
pleasure, the other the reality of evil.
It is dangerous to prove to man too plainly how nearly he is on
a level with the brutes without showing him his greatness; it is
also dangerous to show him his greatness too clearly apart from his
vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of
both. But it is of great advantage to show him both.
How comes it that we have so much patience with those who are maimed
in body, and so little with those who are defective in mind? Because
a cripple recognises that we have the true use of our legs, but the
fool maintains that we are they whose understanding halts; were it
not so we should feel pity and not anger.
Epictetus puts it yet more strongly: "How comes it that we are not
angry if a man says we have an headache, but are angry if told we use
a weak argument or make a wrong choice?" The reason of this is that
we are quite certain we have no headache, or are not lame, but we are
not equally sure that our judgment is correct. So having no assurance
but that we see with our whole powers of sight, we are startled and
confounded when another with equal powers sees the exact opposite,
especially when a thousand others laugh at our decision; for then
we must prefer our light to that of so many others, a daring and
difficult matter. There is never this contradiction in feeling as to
a cripple.
Man is so framed that by dint of telling him he is a fool he believes
it, and by dint of telling it to himself he makes himself believe it.
For man holds a secret communing with himself, which it behoves him
well to regulate: _Corrumpunt mores bonos colloquia prava_. We must
keep silent as much as possible, and converse with ourselves only of
God, whom we know to be true, and thus we persuade ourselves of truth.
I will not suffer him to rest on himself, nor on another, so that
being without a resting place or repose....
If he exalt himself I humble him, if he humble himself I exalt
him, and ever contradict him, till he comprehend that he is an
incomprehensible monster.
The greatness of man consists in thought.
_A thinking reed._--Not from space must I seek my dignity, but from
the ruling of my thought. I should have no more if I possessed whole
worlds. By space the Universe encompasses and swallows me as an atom,
by thought I encompass it.
Man is but a reed, weakest in nature, but a reed which thinks. It
needs not that the whole Universe should arm to crush him. A vapour,
a drop of water is enough to kill him. But were the Universe to crush
him, man would still be more noble than that which has slain him,
because he knows that he dies, and that the Universe has the better
of him. The Universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity therefore consists in thought. By this must we raise
ourselves, not by space or duration which we cannot fill. Then let us
make it our study to think well, for this is the starting-point of
morals.
The greatness of man is great in that he knows he is miserable. A
tree does not know that it is miserable.
It is therefore little to know ourselves little, and it is great to
know ourselves little.
Thus his very infirmities proves man's greatness. They are the
infirmities of a great lord, of a discrowned king.
The greatness of man is so evident that it is even proved by his
littleness. For what in animals is nature we call in man littleness,
whereby we recognise that his nature being now like that of animals
he is fallen from a better nature which once was his.
For what man ever was unhappy at not being a king, save a discrowned
king? Was Paulus Emilius unhappy at being no longer consul? On the
contrary, all men thought him happy in having filled that office,
because it was involved in it that it should be but temporary. But
Perseus was thought so unhappy in being no longer king, because the
condition of royalty involved his being always king, that it was
thought strange he could bear to live. No man thinks himself unhappy
in having but one mouth, but any man is unhappy if he have but one
eye. No man was ever grieved at not having three eyes, but any man is
inconsolable if he have none.
_Perseus, King of Macedon._--Paulus Emilius reproached Perseus for
not killing himself.
There is no misery apart from sensation. A ruined house is not
miserable. Man only is miserable. _Ego vir videns._
It is then thought which makes man's being, and without this we
cannot conceive him. What is it in us which feels pleasure? The hand?
The arm? The flesh? The blood? We see that it roust be something
immaterial.
I can easily conceive a man without hands, feet, head, for it is only
experience which teaches us that the head is more necessary than the
feet. But I cannot conceive a man without thought; he would be a
stone or a brute.
Man is evidently made for thought, this is his whole dignity and his
whole merit; his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now the order of
thought is to begin with self, and with its author and its end.
Now of what thinks the world? Never of these things, but of dancing,
playing the lute, singing, making verses, tilting at the ring, etc.,
of fighting, making ourselves kings, without thinking what it is to
be a king, or what to be a man.
_Thought._--The whole dignity of man lies in thought But what is this
thought? how foolish it is!
Thought is then in its nature admirable and incomparable. It must
have strange defects to be despicable, but it has these, and so
nothing is more ridiculous.
How great it is in essence, how vile in defects!
_Contraries._ _After having shown the vileness and the greatness of
man._--Let man now estimate his value. Let him love himself, because
he has a nature capable of good, but let him not therefore love
the vileness which exists in that nature. Let him despise himself,
because this capacity is void, but let him not therefore despise his
natural capacity. Let him hate himself, let him love himself: he has
in himself the power of knowing the truth and being happy, and yet
has found no truth either permanent or satisfactory.
I would then lead man to the desire of finding it; to be free from
passions and ready to follow it where he may find it, knowing how his
knowledge is obscured by the passions. I would that he should hate
in himself the desires which bias his judgment, that they may neither
blind him in making his choice, nor obstruct him when he has chosen.
I blame equally those who take on themselves to praise man, those
who take on themselves to blame him, and those who merely amuse
themselves; I can approve those only who seek with tears.
The stoics say, "Retire within yourselves, there will you find your
rest;" which is not true. Others say, "Go out of yourselves, seek
your happiness in diversion;" nor is that true, for sickness may come.
Happiness is neither without us nor within us; it is in God, both
without us and within us.
_OF THE DECEPTIVE POWERS OF THE IMAGINATION_.
_Of the deceptive powers_.--Man is only a subject full of natural
error, which is indelible without grace. Nothing shows him the truth,
everything deceives him. These two principles of truth, reason and
the senses, in addition to the fact that they are both wanting in
sincerity, reciprocally deceive each other. The senses trick the
reason by false appearances, and gain from reason in their turn the
same deception with which they deceive; reason avenges herself. The
passions of the soul trouble the senses, and make on them false
impressions. They lie and deceive, outvying one another.
But beyond those errors which come by accident, and by a lack of
intelligence, with these heterogeneous faculties.... _To begin thus
the chapter on the deceptive powers_.
_Imagination._--This is that deceitful part of man, the mistress of
error and falsity, the more knavish that she is not always so, for
she would be an infallible rule of truth, if she were an infallible
rule of lying. But being for the most part false, she gives no mark
of her character, stamping the true and the false with the same die.
I speak not of fools, but of the wisest men, and it is among them
that imagination has the great gift of persuasion. Reason protests in
vain, for she can make no true estimate.