----Sub judice lis est. HOR. De Ar. Poet. 78.
And of their vain disputings find no end. FRANCIS.
IT has been sometimes asked by those who find
the appearance of wisdom more easily attained by
questions than solutions, how it comes to pass, that
the world is divided by such difference of opinion?
and why men, equally reasonable, and equally lovers
of truth, do not always think in the same manner?
With regard to simple propositions, where the
terms are understood, and the whole subject is
comprehended at once, there is such an uniformity of
sentiment among all human beings, that, for many
ages, a very numerous set of notions were supposed
to be innate, or necessarily co-existent with the
faculty of reason: it being imagined, that universal
agreement could proceed only from the invariable
dictates of the universal parent.
In questions diffuse and compounded, this
similarity of determination is no longer to be expected.
At our first sally into the intellectual world, we all
march together along one straight and open road;
but as we proceed further, and wider prospects open
to our view, every eye fixes upon a different scene;
we divide into various paths, and, as we move forward,
are still at a greater distance from each other.
As a question becomes more complicated and
involved, and extends to a greater number of relations,
disagreement of opinion will always be multiplied;
not because we are irrational, but because we are
finite beings, furnished with different kinds of knowledge,
exerting different degrees of attention, one
discovering consequences which escape another, none
taking in the whole concatenation of causes and
effects, and most comprehending but a very small part,
each comparing what he observes with a different
criterion, and each referring it to a different purpose.
Where, then, is the wonder, that they who see
only a small part should judge erroneously of the
whole? or that they, who see different and dissimilar
parts, should judge differently from each other?
Whatever has various respects, must have various
appearances of good and evil, beauty or deformity;
thus, the gardener tears up as a weed, the plant which
the physician gathers as a medicine; and "a general,"
says Sir Kenelm Digby, "will look with pleasure
over a plain, as a fit place on which the fate of
empires might be decided in battle, which the farmer
will despise as bleak and barren, neither fruitful of
pasturage, nor fit for tillage[n]."
[n] Livy has described the Achaean leader, Philopaemen, as
actually so exercising his thoughts whilst he wandered among the
rocky passes of the Morea, xxxv. 28. In the graphic page of the
Roman historian, as in the stanzas of the "Ariosto of the North:"
"From shingles grey the lances start,
"The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
"The rushes and the willow wand
"Are bristling into axe and brand."
Lady of the Lake. Canto v. 9.
Two men examining the same question proceed
commonly like the physician and gardener in selecting
herbs, or the farmer and hero looking on the plain;
they bring minds impressed with different notions,
and direct their inquiries to different ends; they
form, therefore, contrary conclusions, and each
wonders at the other's absurdity.
We have less reason to be surprised or offended
when we find others differ from us in opinion, because
we very often differ from ourselves. How often we
alter our minds, we do not always remark; because
the change is sometimes made imperceptibly and
gradually, and the last conviction effaces all memory
of the former: yet every man, accustomed from time
to time to take a survey of his own notions, will by
a slight retrospection be able to discover, that his
mind has suffered many revolutions that the same
things have in the several parts of his life been
condemned and approved, pursued and shunned: and
that on many occasions, even when his practice has
been steady, his mind has been wavering, and he
has persisted in a scheme of action, rather because
he feared the censure of inconstancy, than because
he was always pleased with his own choice.
Of the different faces shown by the same objects,
as they are viewed on opposite sides, and of the
different inclinations which they must constantly raise
in him that contemplates them, a more striking example
cannot easily be found than two Greek epigrammatists
will afford us in their accounts of
human life, which I shall lay before the reader in
English prose.
Posidippus, a comick poet, utters this complaint:
"Through which of the paths of life is it eligible to
pass? In public assemblies are debates and troublesome
affairs: domestick privacies are haunted with
anxieties; in the country is labour; on the sea is
terrour: in a foreign land, he that has money must
live in fear, he that wants it must pine in distress:
are you married? you are troubled with suspicions;
are you single? you languish in solitude; children
occasion toil, and a childless life is a state of
destitution: the time of youth is a time of folly, and
gray hairs are loaded with infirmity. This choice
only, therefore, can be made, either never to receive
being, or immediately to lose it[o]."
[o] "Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,
"Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
"And know, whatever thou hast been,
" 'Tis something better not to be."
Lord Byron's Euthanasia.
Compare also the plaintive chorus in the OEdipus at Colonos, 1211.
Among the tragedies of Sophocles this stands forth a mass of feeling.
See Schlegel's remarks upon it in his Dramatic Literature.
Such and so gloomy is the prospect, which
Posidippus has laid before us. But we are not to
acquiesce too hastily in his determination against the
value of existence: for Metrodorus, a philosopher of
Athens, has shown, that life has pleasures as well
as pains; and having exhibited the present state of
man in brighter colours, draws with equal appearance
of reason, a contrary conclusion.
"You may pass well through any of the paths of
life. In publick assemblies are honours and
transactions of wisdom; in domestick privacy is stillness
and quiet: in the country are the beauties of nature;
on the sea is the hope of gain: in a foreign land, he
that is rich is honoured, he that is poor may keep
his poverty secret: are you married? you have a
cheerful house; are you single? you are unincumbered;
children are objects of affection, to be without
children is to be without care: the time of
youth is the time of vigour, and gray hairs are made
venerable by piety. It will, therefore, never be a wise
man's choice, either not to obtain existence, or to
lose it; for every state of life has its felicity."
In these epigrams are included most of the
questions which have engaged the speculations of the
inquirers after happiness, and though they will not
much assist our determinations, they may, perhaps,
equally promote our quiet, by showing that no
absolute determination ever can be formed.
Whether a publick station or private life be
desirable, has always been debated. We see here both
the allurements and discouragements of civil
employments; on one side there is trouble, on the
other honour; the management of affairs is
vexatious and difficult, but it is the only duty in which
wisdom can be conspicuously displayed: it must
then still be left to every man to choose either ease
or glory; nor can any general precept be given, since
no man can be happy by the prescription of another.
Thus, what is said of children by Posidippus,
"that they are occasions of fatigue," and by
Metrodorus, "that they are objects of affection," is
equally certain; but whether they will give most
pain or pleasure, must depend on their future
conduct and dispositions, on many causes over which
the parent can have little influence: there is,
therefore, room for all the caprices of imagination, and
desire must be proportioned to the hope or fear that
shall happen to predominate.
Such is the uncertainty in which we are always
likely to remain with regard to questions wherein
we have most interest, and which every day affords
us fresh opportunity to examine: we may examine,
indeed, but we never can decide, because our faculties
are unequal to the subject; we see a little, and
form an opinion; we see more, and change it.
This inconstancy and unsteadiness, to which we
must so often find ourselves liable, ought certainly
to teach us moderation and forbearance towards
those who cannot accommodate themselves to our
sentiments: if they are deceived, we have no right
to attribute their mistake to obstinacy or negligence,
because we likewise have been mistaken; we
may, perhaps, again change our own opinion: and
what excuse shall we be able to find for aversion and
malignity conceived against him, whom we shall then
find to have committed no fault, and who offended
us only by refusing to follow us into errour?
It may likewise contribute to soften that
resentment which pride naturally raises against
opposition, if we consider, that he who differs from us,
does not always contradict us; he has one view of
an object, and we have another; each describes
what he sees with equal fidelity, and each regulates
his steps by his own eyes: one man with Posidippus,
looks on celibacy as a state of gloomy
solitude, without a partner in joy, or a comforter in
sorrow; the other considers it, with Metrodorus, as
a state free from incumbrances, in which a man is
at liberty to choose his own gratifications, to
remove from place to place in quest of pleasure, and
to think of nothing but merriment and diversion:
full of these notions one hastens to choose a wife,
and the other laughs at his rashness, or pities his
ignorance; yet it is possible that each is right, but
that each is right only for himself.
Life is not the object of science: we see a little,
very little; and what is beyond we only can
conjecture. If we inquire of those who have gone
before us, we receive small satisfaction; some have
travelled life without observation, and some
willingly mislead us. The only thought, therefore, on
which we can repose with comfort, is that which
presents to us the care of Providence, whose eye
takes in the whole of things, and under whose
direction all involuntary errours will terminate in
happiness.