_Hercules_.--Do you pretend to sit as high on Olympus as Hercules? Did
you kill the Nemean lion, the Erymanthian boar, the Lernean serpent, and
Stymphalian birds? Did you destroy tyrants and robbers? You value
yourself greatly on subduing one serpent; I did as much as that while I
lay in my cradle.
_Cadmus_.--It is not on account of the serpent I boast myself a greater
benefactor to Greece than you. Actions should be valued by their utility
rather than their eclat. I taught Greece the art of writing, to which
laws owe their precision and permanency. You subdued monsters; I
civilised men. It is from untamed passions, not from wild beasts, that
the greatest evils arise to human society. By wisdom, by art, by the
united strength of civil community, men have been enabled to subdue the
whole race of lions, bears, and serpents, and what is more, to bind in
laws and wholesome regulations the ferocious violence and dangerous
treachery of the human disposition. Had lions been destroyed only in
single combat, men had had but a bad time of it; and what but laws could
awe the men who killed the lions? The genuine glory, the proper
distinction of the rational species, arises from the perfection of the
mental powers. Courage is apt to be fierce, and strength is often
exerted in acts of oppression. But wisdom is the associate of justice.
It assists her to form equal laws, to pursue right measures, to correct
power, protect weakness, and to unite individuals in a common interest
and general welfare. Heroes may kill tyrants, but it is wisdom and laws
that prevent tyranny and oppression. The operations of policy far
surpass the labours of Hercules, preventing many evils which valour and
might cannot even redress. You heroes consider nothing but glory, and
hardly regard whether the conquests which raise your fame are really
beneficial to your country. Unhappy are the people who are governed by
valour not directed by prudence, and not mitigated by the gentle arts!
_Hercules_.--I do not expect to find an admirer of my strenuous life in
the man who taught his countrymen to sit still and read, and to lose the
hours of youth and action in idle speculation and the sport of words.
_Cadmus_.--An ambition to have a place in the registers of fame is the
Eurystheus which imposes heroic labours on mankind. The muses incite to
action as well as entertain the hours of repose; and I think you should
honour them for presenting to heroes such a noble recreation as may
prevent their taking up the distaff when they lay down the club.
_Hercules_.--Wits as well as heroes can take up the distaff. What think
you of their thin-spun systems of philosophy, or lascivious poems, or
Milesian fables? Nay, what is still worse, are there not panegyrics on
tyrants, and books that blaspheme the gods and perplex the natural sense
of right and wrong? I believe if Eurystheus was to set me to work again
he would find me a worse task than any he imposed; he would make me read
through a great library; and I would serve it as I did the hydra, I would
burn as I went on, that one chimera might not rise from another to plague
mankind. I should have valued myself more on clearing the library than
on cleansing the Augean stables.
_Cadmus_.--It is in those libraries only that the memory of your labours
exists. The heroes of Marathon, the patriots of Thermopylae, owe their
immortality to me. All the wise institutions of lawgivers and all the
doctrines of sages had perished in the ear, like a dream related, if
letters had not preserved them. Oh Hercules! it is not for the man who
preferred virtue to pleasure to be an enemy to the muses. Let
Sardanapalus and the silken sons of luxury, who have wasted life in
inglorious ease, despise the records of action which bear no honourable
testimony to their lives. But true merit, heroic virtue, each genuine
offspring of immortal Jove, should honour the sacred source of lasting
fame.
_Hercules_.--Indeed, if writers employed themselves only in recording the
acts of great men, much might be said in their favour. But why do they
trouble people with their meditations? Can it signify to the world what
an idle man has been thinking?
_Cadmus_.--Yes, it may. The most important and extensive advantages
mankind enjoy are greatly owing to men who have never quitted their
closets. To them mankind is obliged for the facility and security of
navigation. The invention of the compass has opened to them new worlds.
The knowledge of the mechanical powers has enabled them to construct such
wonderful machines as perform what the united labour of millions by the
severest drudgery could not accomplish. Agriculture, too, the most
useful of arts, has received its share of improvement from the same
source. Poetry likewise is of excellent use to enable the memory to
retain with more ease, and to imprint with more energy upon the heart,
precepts of virtue and virtuous actions. Since we left the world, from
the little root of a few letters, science has spread its branches over
all nature, and raised its head to the heavens. Some philosophers have
entered so far into the counsels of divine wisdom as to explain much of
the great operations of nature. The dimensions and distances of the
planets, the causes of their revolutions, the path of comets, and the
ebbing and flowing of tides are understood and explained. Can anything
raise the glory of the human species more than to see a little creature,
inhabiting a small spot, amidst innumerable worlds, taking a survey of
the universe, comprehending its arrangement, and entering into the scheme
of that wonderful connection and correspondence of things so remote, and
which it seems the utmost exertion of Omnipotence to have established?
What a volume of wisdom, what a noble theology do these discoveries open
to us! While some superior geniuses have soared to these sublime
subjects, other sagacious and diligent minds have been inquiring into the
most minute works of the Infinite Artificer; the same care, the same
providence is exerted through the whole, and we should learn from it that
to true wisdom utility and fitness appear perfection, and whatever is
beneficial is noble.
_Hercules_.--I approve of science as far as it is assistant to action. I
like the improvement of navigation and the discovery of the greater part
of the globe, because it opens a wider field for the master spirits of
the world to bustle in.
_Cadmus_.--There spoke the soul of Hercules. But if learned men are to
be esteemed for the assistance they give to active minds in their
schemes, they are not less to be valued for their endeavours to give them
a right direction and moderate their too great ardour. The study of
history will teach the warrior and the legislator by what means armies
have been victorious and states have become powerful; and in the private
citizen they will inculcate the love of liberty and order. The writings
of sages point out a private path of virtue, and show that the best
empire is self-government, and subduing our passions the noblest of
conquests.
_Hercules_.--The true spirit of heroism acts by a sort of inspiration,
and wants neither the experience of history nor the doctrines of
philosophers to direct it. But do not arts and sciences render men
effeminate, luxurious, and inactive? and can you deny that wit and
learning are often made subservient to very bad purposes?
_Cadmus_.--I will own that there are some natures so happily formed they
hardly want the assistance of a master, and the rules of art, to give
them force or grace in everything they do. But these heaven-inspired
geniuses are few. As learning flourishes only where ease, plenty, and
mild government subsist, in so rich a soil, and under so soft a climate,
the weeds of luxury will spring up among the flowers of art; but the
spontaneous weeds would grow more rank, if they were allowed the
undisturbed possession of the field. Letters keep a frugal, temperate
nation from growing ferocious, a rich one from becoming entirely sensual
and debauched. Every gift of the gods is sometimes abused; but wit and
fine talents by a natural law gravitate towards virtue; accidents may
drive them out of their proper direction; but such accidents are a sort
of prodigies, and, like other prodigies, it is an alarming omen, and of
dire portent to the times. For if virtue cannot keep to her allegiance
those men, who in their hearts confess her divine right, and know the
value of her laws, on whose fidelity and obedience can she depend? May
such geniuses never descend to flatter vice, encourage folly, or
propagate irreligion; but exert all their powers in the service of
virtue, and celebrate the noble choice of those, who, like you, preferred
her to pleasure.