general good of the world, to follow prejudices, popular errors, and the
blind instincts of nature, rather than the distinct ideas of reason."
Mr. Bayle extends himself farther on this idea in another place[3],
which I shall here insert. "Errors," says he, "irregular passions, and
unreasonable prejudices, are so necessary to the world to make it a
theatre of that prodigious diversity of events which make one admire his
providence. So that he who would reduce men to do nothing but according
to the distinct ideas of reason, would ruin civil society. If man was
reduced to this condition, he would have no longer any desire of glory;
and having no longer that desire, is it not true, that then mankind
would be like ice? I say, he would have no desire of glory, for right
reason shews us, that we should not make our happiness depend on the
judgment of other men; and consequently, that we should not toil and
fatigue ourselves, to make other people say this, or that, of us----.
The earnest desire of being praised after death is an instinct of
morality that God has impressed in the mind of man, to keep up society.
And it is certain, that earnest desire has been the cause of the
greatest events; and this ought to instruct us that the world stands in
need of a great many instincts, which, examined according to the ideas
of our reason, are ridiculous and absurd. For there is nothing so
opposite to reason as to torment ourselves in this life, that we may be
praised after we are dead, since neither philosophy, nor experience, nor
faith, nor any thing whatsover, makes it appear, that the praises given
us after death can do us any good. It would be a thing uneasy to the
heart of man, if we did nothing but according to the light of reason;
and how many designs would come to nothing at the same time?"
Thirdly, Besides, reason very often serves for nothing but to make us
wretched. "The happiness of man is never the work of reason." Of all our
evils reason is often the worst; it frightens us in the full career of
our pleasures, and with importunate remorses comes to bridle our fleet
desires. The horrid thing reserves for us most cruel and matchless
rigours. It is like a troublesome pedant one is forced to hear, who
always growls, but never touches us, and frequently like D------,
and such like venerable impertinents, lose the time they employ in
predication.
"If there be any happiness[4]," says Fontenelle, "that reason produces,
it is like that sort of health which cannot be maintained but by the
force of physic, and which is ever most feeble and uncertain." And in
another place he cries out, "[5]Can we not have sound sight without
being at the same time wretched and uneasy? Is there any thing gay but
error? And is reason made for any thing else but to torment and kill
us?" "[6]What cause have not men to bewail their wretched condition?
Nature furnishes them but with a very few things that are agreeable, and
their reason teaches them how to enjoy them yet less." "[7]And why has
Nature, in giving us passions which are sufficient to make us happy,
given us reason, that will not suffer us to be so?"
It was this same troublesome reason that made Sophocles say, "[8]It is
very sweet to live, but none of your wisdom, away with her, she spoils
life."
Vaunt less thy reason, O unhappy man!
Behold how useless is this gift celestial,
For which, they say, thou should'st the rest disdain.
Feeble as thou wert in thy infant days,
Like thee she mov'd, she totter'd, and was weak.
When age mature arriv'd, and call'd to pleasures,
Slave to thy sense, she still was so to thee,
When fifty winters, Fate had let thee count;
Pregnant with thousand cares and worlds of woes,
The hateful issue in thy breast she threw,
And now grown old thou loosest her for ever.
Before I end this chapter, let every body take notice, that if for
having spoken so much against reason, any one should say, that it is a
plain sign the author has none; and that there are a great many others,
who, in the words of M. La Motte[9], will be apt to say:--
"Heureux cent fois l'auteur avec qui l'on s'oublie
Qui nous offre un charmant poison,
Et nous associant a sa douce folie
Nous affranchit de la raison."
Happy the author, whose bewitching style,
Life's tedious minutes can beguile,
Makes us, with him, forget uneasy care,
And not remember what we are.
Who by a charm, which no one can withstand,
Enchanting poison can command,
Can make us share his pleasing foolery,
And from dull reason set us free.
And I shall not be wanting to answer in the words of the same gentleman:
"[10]Bûveurs brisez le joug d'une raison trop fiere
Eteignez son triste flambeau
D'autres enseignent l'art d'augmenter sa lumiere
Mais l'art de l'eteindre est plus beau."
Break, jolly topers, break th' ungrateful chain
Of reason, if she too imperious grow,
Of being disturb'd you never need complain,
If you put out her troublesome flambeau.
Others may teach the art t' increase her fires,
To put them out a finer art requires.
[Footnote 1: Lett. xxii, sur la Crit. du Calv. p. 756.]
[Footnote 2: Lett. sur la Crit. du Calv. Lett. xvi. p.504.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 535.]
[Footnote 4: Dial. de M. Stuart, et P. Riccio.]
[Footnote 5: Dial. de Parmen. et de Theb.]
[Footnote 6: Dial. de Alexand. et Phryne.]
[Footnote 7: Nouv. Dial. des Dieux, p. 99.]
[Footnote 8: Moriæ Encom.]
[Footnote 9: La Motte, Od. la Vanité.]
[Footnote 10: Od. Thalia.]
CHAP. XXIII.
AN ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION, THAT ONE CANNOT TRUST A MAN THAT GETS DRUNK.
There is a proverb amongst the Jews. "[1]_Ingrediente vino egreditur
secretum._" As the wine goes in so the secret goes out. Seneca[2] makes
the same objection. "As," says he, "new wine bursts the vessel, and the
heat makes every thing go upwards, so the force of wine is such, that it
brings to light, and discovers, what is most secret and hidden."
In answer to this objection I say, that people who are naturally secret,
are not less so after drinking. "[3]And Bacchus was not said to be the
inventor of wine, on account of the liberty of his tongue, but because
he freed our minds from disquiet, and makes them more firm and resolute
in what we undertake."
Besides, do we not see every day, people of all ranks, conditions, and
characters, get drunk, and yet we trust them with secrets, and it very
rarely happens they speak of them when they are drunk. Thus, if we
consult history, we shall learn from Seneca[4] himself, that the design
of killing Cæsar was as well communicated to Tullius Cimber, who was a
great drinker, as to C. Cassius, who drank nothing but water. And though
L. Piso, governor of Rome, got frequently drunk, he, notwithstanding,
excellently acquitted himself of his duty. Augustus made no manner of
difficulty to give him secret instructions, bestowing on him the
government of Thrace, the conquest of which he entirely completed.
Tiberius, before he left Rome, where he was generally hated, in order to
retire into the Campania, made choice of Costus, who was extremely given
to wine, for governor of that city, to whom he communicated such things
as he dared not trust his own ministers with.
[Footnote 1: Voyage de Rouvie, p. 497.]
[Footnote 2: Ep. 83.]
[Footnote 3: Seneca de Tranquill.]
[Footnote 4: Seneca, ep. 83.]
CHAP. XXIV.
AN ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION, THAT DRUNKENNESS MAKES ONE INCAPABLE OF
PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF CIVIL LIFE.
I deny this absolutely, and to prove the contrary, I say, the Persians
had a custom to deliberate on things the most serious, and of the
greatest importance, after hard drinking. Tacitus reports the same thing
of the Germans. Dampier assures us, that the same custom is practised
with the inhabitants of the Isthmus Darien. And to go higher, one finds
in Homer, that during the siege of Troy, the Greeks, in council, did eat
and drink heartily. An evident proof, that this objection is contrary to
experience. But to go farther, this same experience made the ancients
look on those who could carry a great deal of wine, as persons of a
genius very much superior to those who could not drink at all. On this
account it was, that Cyrus, in writing to the Lacedemonians the reasons
which rendered him more capable of government than his brother, amongst
other things, takes notice, that he could drink more wine than he. And
so many fine productions, for which we are obliged to the drunkenness of
the poets, make it evidently appear, that wine, far from rendering us
incapable of doing any thing that is good, rather helps and incites us
to it. This important truth we shall confirm by several examples.
Plutarch relates, that Philip king of Macedon, after having conquered
the Athenians, made a feast, at which he got drunk; and that all proud
with that happy success, he nevertheless did a great many things
entirely ridiculous; but being informed that the ambassadors that the
Athenians sent to him to desire peace, wished to see him, he changed his
countenance all of a sudden, and having heard their proposals with all
possible attention, answered them with a great deal of justice.
The emperor Bonosus, who Amelian said was born not to live, but to
drink, acted always with greater prudence after drinking, says Flavius
Vopiscus, after Onesimus[1].
We have taken notice, in the foregoing chapter, that L. Piso, governor
of Rome, though he was often drunk, acquitted himself, notwithstanding,
punctually of his duty.
Christiern[2], the fourth king of Denmark, drank like a templer, and
never king was more laborious, a greater lover of his subjects, or more
beloved by them.
Scaliger[3] says, that a German has as much reason when he is drunk,
as when he has drank nothing. _Non minus sapit Germanus ebrius quam
sobrius._
Montaigne[4] speaks in his Essays, of a great lord of his time, who,
though he drank every day a prodigious quantity of wine, was,
nevertheless, equally careful in his affairs. According to which, that
which Cicero says is not generally true, viz. "That one must never
expect prudence from a man that is always drunk." _Nec enim ab homine
nunquam sobrio postulanda prudentia_[5].
Another proof that drunkenness does not render us incapable of doing any
thing that is good, is, that it inspires people with courage, and even
makes the coward valiant. _Ad prelia trudit inertem._ Experience
confirms this truth. "We see," says Montaigne[6], "that our Germans,
though drowned in wine, remember their post, the word, and their rank."
We read in Spartien, that a certain general having been vanquished by
the Saracens, his soldiers laid all the blame of their defeat on their
want of wine.
The soldiers of the army of Pescennius Niger pressed earnestly for wine,
undoubtedly to make them fight the better; but he refused them in these
words, "You have the Nile," said he, "and do you ask for wine?" In
imitation, I suppose, of the emperor Augustus[7], who, when the people
complained of the dearness and scarcity of wine, said to them, "My
son-in-law, Agrippa, has preserved you from thirst, by the canals he has
made for you."
By what has been said it plainly appears, that wine is so far from
hindering a man from performing the duties of life, that it rather
forwards him, and is an admirable ingredient in all states and
conditions, both of peace and war, which made Horace[8] thus bespeak the
god of wine.
"Quanquam choreis aptior et jocis
Ludoque dictus, non sat idoneus
Pugnis ferebaris, sed idem
Pacis eras mediusque belli."
Tho' thou more apt for love than furious war,
And gay desires to move, thy chiefest care,
Yet war, and sweetest pleasures, you can join,
Both Mars and Venus are devotes to wine.
[Footnote 1: Flav. Vopisc. in vita Bonos.]
[Footnote 2: Amel. de la Houssai sur Tacit. Ann. liv. xi. ch. 35.]
[Footnote 3: Scaligeriana, p. 169.]
[Footnote 4: L. ii. ch. 2.]
[Footnote 5: Orat. ii. Philip.]
[Footnote 6: Essais, l. ii. ch. 2.]
[Footnote 7: Sueton. in Vit. August.]
[Footnote 8: Lib. ii. Od. 19.]
CHAP. XXV.
BURLESQUE, RIDICULOUS, AND OUT-OF-THE-WAY THOUGHTS, AGAINST DRUNKENNESS.
It is reported that Gerson should say, That there was no difference
between a man's killing himself at one stroke, or to procure death by
several, in getting drunk.
Somebody has burlesqued this verse of Ovid[1]:--
Vina parant animos, faciuntque coloribus aptos.[1a]
And thus changed it,
Vina parant asinos, faciuntque furoribus aptos.
Cyneas[2] alluding to those high trees to which they used to fasten the
vines, said one day, discoursing on wine, that it was not without reason
that his mother was hanged upon so high a gibbet.
"[3]The diversion that people took heretofore in making one another
drunk, appeared more heinous to St. Augustine than an assassination, for
he maintained, that those who made any one drunk, did him greater injury
than if they had given him a stab with a dagger.
"A Greek[4] physician once wrote a letter to Alexander, in which he
begged him to remember, that every time that he drank wine, he drank the
pure blood of the earth, and that he must not abuse it.
"[5]Some poets say, that it was the blood of the gods wounded in their
battle with the giants.
"[6]The Severians in St. Epiphanius, hold, that it was engendered by a
serpent, and it is for that reason that the vine is so strong. And the
Encratites, in the same author, imagine to themselves that it was the
gall of the devil.
"Noah[7] in an hour of drunkenness," says St. Jerom, "let his body be
seen naked, which he had kept covered for six hundred years."
[Footnote 1: Sphinx Theol. p. 682.]
[[Footnote 1a: Ovid, _Ars Amatoria_ 237.]]
[Footnote 2: Diver, cur. t. i. p. 141.]
[Footnote 3: Rep. des Lett. Janv. 1687. Art. I.]
[Footnote 4: Androcydes.]
[Footnote 5: Entret. de Voiture, et de Costar, Lett. 29.]
[Footnote 6: Lib. i. Heres. 47.]
[Footnote 7: Ep. ad Ocean.]
CHAP. XXVI.
A RIDICULOUS AVERSION THAT SOME HAVE TO WINE.
An aversion to wine is a thing not very common; and there are but a very
few but will say with Catullus:--
"At vos quo lubet, hinc abite lymphæ
Vini pernicies."[a]
Pernicious water, bane to wine, be gone.
One should certainly be very much in the wrong to put in the number of
those who had an aversion to wine the duke of Clarence. His brother,
Edward the Fourth, prejudiced with the predictions of Merlin, as if they
foretold, that one day that duke should usurp the crown from his
children, resolved to put him to death, he only gave him the liberty to
choose what death he would die of. The duke being willing to die a merry
death, chose to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Not unlike him on whom
this epigram was made.
"[1]In cyatho vini pleno cum musca periret;
Sic, ait Oeneus, sponte perire velim."
In a full glass of wine expir'd a fly;
So, said Oeneus, would I freely die.
But let us come in earnest to those who have really had an antipathy to
wine. Herbelot[2], in his Bibliotheque Orientale, says, that there are
some Mussulmans so superstitious, that they will not call wine by its
true name, which is Schamr and Nedibh; and that there are some princes
amongst them that have forbidden the mentioning of it by express laws.
The reason of all this is, the prohibition of Mahomet to his followers,
which enjoins them not to drink wine. The occasion of which prohibition
is as follows: "[3]They say, that passing one day through a village,
and seeing the people in the mirth of wine embracing and kissing one
another, and making a thousand protestations of friendship, he was so
charmed with the sight, that he blessed the wine, as the best thing in
the world. But that, at his return, observing the same place full of
blood, and having been informed, that the same men whom he had seen
before so merry, had, at last, changed their mirth into rage, and been
fighting with their swords, he recalled his benediction, and cursed wine
for ever, on account of the bad effects it produced."
It is one of the chief commandments amongst the Siameze, to drink no
wine, nor any liquor that will procure drunkenness[4].
"[5]Drunkenness is detested in most parts of hot countries. It is looked
upon there as infamous. The greatest affront you can give a Spaniard,
is to call him drunkard. I have been assured, continues M. Bayle,
a servant, if his master should call him so, might bring his action at
law against him, and recover damages, though any other name he will
suffer very patiently, and without any right of complaint of being
injured in his reputation, as rogue, hang-dog, b----, &c."
Empedocles, we may well conclude, loved wine, which he called, Water
putrified in wood.
[6]Amongst the Locrians, Seleucus had such an aversion to wine, that he
forbad any one to drink it under pain of death, or even give it to the
sick.
Apollonius Thyanæus never drank any wine, no more than St. Fulgentius,
bishop, S. Stephen, king of Poland, and cardinal Emeri.
"[7]The Severians, disciples of Severus, in the time of pope Sotherus,
condemned absolutely wine, as a creature of the devil."
[8]The emperor Frederick the Third, seeing his wife barren, consulted
the physicians upon the case; who told him, that if the empress would
drink wine she might be fruitful. But he told them, like a simpleton as
he was, That he had rather his wife should be barren and sober, than be
fruitful and drink wine. And the empress, being informed of the wise
answer of the imperial ninny-hammer, her husband, said full as wisely,
That if she was to be put to her choice, to drink wine or die, she
should make no manner of hesitation, but prefer death.
De nimia sapientia libera nos domine.
[[Footnote a: Catullus XXVII.5-6.]]
[Footnote 1: Rem. sur Rabel. t. iv. ch. 93.]
[Footnote 2: Page 777.]
[Footnote 3: Du Mont. Voyag. t. iii. let. 5.]
[Footnote 4: Chaumont Voyag. de Siam.]
[Footnote 5: Bayle Dict. t. ii. p. 1266.]
[Footnote 6: Ælian, lib. ii. ch. 33.]
[Footnote 7: Du Mont. Voyag. t. iii. lit. 5.]
[Footnote 8: Rec. choise d'Hist.]
CHAP. XXVII.
RIGOROUS LAWS AGAINST WINE AND DRUNKENNESS.
It is easy to imagine, that princes who did not love wine themselves,
would make very rigorous laws against drunkenness, and fall into that
fault which Horace speaks of.
Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt.[a]
But this maxim, _Nullum violentum durabile_, has been verified a great
many times, upon this subject of drunkenness, for all the laws made
against it have not long subsisted.
Pentheus[1], king of Thebes, endeavoured to extirpate entirely the
custom of getting drunk; but he did not find his account in it, for he
was very ill-treated by his subjects for his pains.
Lycurgus[2], king of Thrace, commanded all the vines of the country to
be cut up; for which he was justly punished by Bacchus. He also made
laws against drunkenness, which one may reckon amongst the bad ones that
he instituted. As,
I. _The using women in common._
II. _The nudity of young women in certain solemn festivals._
"Pittacus[3], one of the wise men of Greece, commanded, that he who
committed a fault when he was drunk, should suffer a double punishment.
And amongst the laws of Solon, there was one, which condemned to death
the chief magistrate if he got drunk. Amongst the Indians, who only just
touch wine in the ceremonies of their sacrifices, the law commands, that
the woman who killed one of their kings, should get drunk, and marry his
successor."
[4]The Athenians had also very severe laws against those that should get
drunk; but one may say, these laws resembled those of Draco, which were
written rather with blood than ink.
We come now to the Turks. Sir Paul Ricaut[5] tells us several
particulars on this head. Amurath, says he, resolved, in the year 1634,
to forbid entirely the use of wine. He put out a severe edict, which
commanded all the houses where they sold wine to be razed, the barrels
wherever they should be found to be staved, and the wine to be let out
into the streets. And that he might truly be satisfied his orders were
obeyed, he frequently disguised himself, and walked in that manner about
the city; and when he found any one carrying wine, he sent him to
prison, and had him bastinadoed almost to death. One day he met in the
streets a poor deaf man, who not hearing the noise usually made at the
approach of the sultan, did not soon enough avoid a prince whose
presence was so fatal. This negligence cost him his life. He was
strangled by order of the grand seignior, who commanded his body to be
cast into the street. But this great severity did not last long, and all
things returned to their former condition.
However, matters took again another turn under the reign of Mahomet the
IVth. who, in 1670, resolved to forbid all the soldiery the use of wine.
The terrible seditions that liquor had formerly raised were remembered,
and especially that which happened under Mahomet the Third, who saw his
seraglio forced by a great multitude of soldiers full of wine, and whose
fury he could not free himself from, but by sacrificing his principal
favourites. An edict was published, to prohibit entirely the use of
wine, and to command all those who had any in their houses, to send it
out of town. The same extended all over the empire. The sultan condemned
to death those who should violate this decree, in which he spoke of wine
as of a liquor infernal, invented by the devil to destroy the souls of
men, to disturb their reason, and put states into combustion. This was
rigorously put in execution, and to that extremity, that it cost the
ambassador of England, and the christian merchants of Constantinople,
great solicitations, and large sums of money, to get leave to make only
as much wine as would suffice for their own families. At Smyrna, the
officers of the grand seignior had not the same indulgence for the
christians, who were one whole year without wine; and it was with great
difficulty they got leave to import it from the isles of the
Archipelago, and other places not comprised in that prohibition; for
this prohibition reached only those places where there were mosques.
Besides all this, they made every Friday sermons stuffed full of
declamations against those who should drink it. In short, this edict was
so severe, that wine seemed to be banished for ever the states of the
grand seignior. But in about a year's time its severity was somewhat
remitted. The ambassadors, and other christians, had leave to make wine
within themselves; and about a year after that, the indulgence for wine
was general, the taverns were opened, and at this day that liquor is as
common as it was before.
[[Footnote a: Horace, _Satire_ I.ii.24.]]
[Footnote 1: Sphinx. Theol. p. 669.]
[Footnote 2: Hist. 7 Sap.]
[Footnote 3: Chevreana, t. i. p. 217.]
[Footnote 4: Hist. 7 Sap.]
[Footnote 5: See his Turkish Hist.]
CHAP. XXVIII.
RULES TO BE OBSERVED IN GETTING DRUNK. I. NOT TOO OFTEN. II. IN GOOD
COMPANY.
To avoid the disorders that drunkenness might cause, here are some rules
that ought to be observed in this important affair of getting drunk;
for, according to Pliny, the art of getting drunk has its laws.
Hæc ars suis legibus constat.[a]
I. The first, and principal of these, is not to get drunk too often.
This is what Seneca[1] recommends very much. "You must not," says he,
"do it often, for fear it grow into a habit; it is but only sometimes
you should make your spirits gay in banishing gloomy sobriety."
And if any person objects, That if one gets drunk sometimes, one shall
do it often. I deny the consequence, and say in the words of the
philosopher, an axiom held by both universities, that
Ab actu ad habitum non valet consequentia.
II. Second rule. One must not get drunk but in good company. That is to
say, with good friends, people of wit, honour, and good humour, and
where there is good wine. For example, a man in former times would have
done very ill to get drunk with Heliogabalus, whose historian[2]
reports, that after having made his friends drunk, he used to shut them
up in an apartment, and at night let loose upon them lions, leopards,
and tigers, which always tore to pieces some of them. On the other hand,
the best wine in the world will taste very bad in bad company. It is
therefore that Martial reproaches one, that he spoiled his good wine
with his silly babbling.
------------ Verbis mucida vina facis.[2a]
[[Footnote a: Pliny, _Natural History_ XIV.50
(or XIV.xxviii.146).]]
[Footnote 1: De Tranquillitate.]
[Footnote 2: Ælius Lamprid. in Vit. Heliogab.]
[[Footnote 2a: Martial VIII.vi.4.]]
CHAP. XXIX.
THIRD RULE, WITH GOOD WINE.