of sand in the air; an almost infinite number of fiery globes, the
vastness of whose bulk confounds my imagination, and whose height
exceeds the reach of my conceptions, all perpetually revolving round
this grain of sand, have been for above six thousand years, and are
still, daily crossing the wide, the immense space of the heavens. Do
you desire another system no less amazing? The earth itself is carried
round the sun, which is the centre of the universe, with inconceivable
velocity.[887] Methinks I see the motion of all these globes, the
orderly march of these prodigious bodies; no disorder, no deflection,
no collision, ever happens; should but the smallest of them happen
to deviate and meet the earth, what would become of this earth? But,
on the contrary, all keep their respective positions, remain in the
order prescribed for them; and this, with respect to us, is performed
so silently, that no oneʼs hearing is acute enough to hear them
move, and that ordinary people know not that there are such bodies.
How wonderfully are the works of chance! Could intelligence itself
have surpassed this? Only one thing. Lucilius, troubles me. These
vast bodies are all so constant and exact in their various courses
and revolutions, and in their relations to each other, that a little
animal, confined to a corner of that wide space which is called the
world, from his observations on them, has contrived an exact and
infallible method of foretelling in what degree of their respective
courses every one of these stars will be two thousand, four thousand,
nay, twenty thousand years hence. This is my scruple, Lucilius. If
these stars by chance follow such invariable rules, what is order, what
are rules?
Nay, I will ask you what is chance? Is it a body? Is it a spirit? Is
it a being distinguished from all other beings, having a peculiar
existence or dwelling in any place; or, rather, is it not a mode or
fashion of being? When a ball rolls against a stone, we are apt to say
it is a chance; but is it anything more than an accidental hitting of
these bodies one against another? If, by this chance, or this knock,
the ball changes its straight course into an oblique one; if its motion
from direct becomes reflected; if it ceases to roll on its axis, but
winds and whirls about like a top, shall I from thence infer that
motion in general proceeds in this ball from this same chance? Shall I
not rather apprehend that the ball owes it to itself, or to the impulse
of the arm which delivered it? Or, because the circular motions of the
wheels of a clock are determined one by the other, in their degrees of
swiftness, shall I be less anxious to find out what may be the cause of
these several motions; whether it lies in the wheels themselves, or is
derived from the moving force of a weight which sets them in motion?
But neither these wheels nor this ball could produce this motion in
themselves, nor do they owe it to their own nature, if they can be
deprived of it, without changing this very nature; it is, therefore,
likely they are moved extraneously and by some power not inherent to
them. And as for the celestial bodies, if they should be deprived of
their motion, would their nature then be altered, and would they cease
being bodies? I cannot believe they would. Yet they move, and as
they move not of themselves, nor by their own nature, it behoves us,
Lucilius, to examine whether there is not some principle, not inherent
to them, which causes this motion. Whatever you may find it, I call it
God.
If we should suppose these great bodies to be without motion, we should
not then ask who moves them, but still the question would be pertinent
as to who made these bodies, as I may ask who made these wheels or that
ball? And though each of these bodies were supposed to be but a mass of
atoms, fortuitously knit together through the shape and conformation of
their parts, I should take one of these atoms, and ask: “Who created
this atom: is it matter; is it spirit; and has it any idea of itself?”
If so, then it existed a minute before it did exist; it was, and it
was not at the same time; and if it be the author of its own being,
and of its manner of being, why did it make itself a body rather than
a spirit? Moreover, has this atom had a beginning, or is it eternal,
infinite, and will you make a God of this atom?[888]
(44.) A mite has eyes; it turns aside if it meets objects that can
hurt it; place it on a flat piece of ebony, so that people may see it
better, and if, while it is walking, but the smallest piece of straw is
put in its way, it will alter its course immediately. Do you think its
crystalline fluid, its retina, and its optic nerve are the products of
chance?
Let pepper lie in water a little time, and be well steeped in it; then
view a single drop of it with a microscope, and an almost countless
number of animalculæ will be perceived, moving about with incredible
agility, like so many monsters in the vast ocean; each of these
animalculæ is a thousand times smaller than a mite, and yet it is a
living body, receiving nourishment, growing, having muscles, and even
vessels performing the functions of veins, nerves, and arteries, and a
brain for the distribution of its animal spirits.[889]
A speck of mould, though no bigger than a grain of sand, appears
through a microscope like a collection of many distinct plants, of
which some are plainly seen to bear flowers and other fruits; some have
buds only, partly opened, and others are withered. How extremely small
must be the roots and fibres through which these little plants receive
their nourishment! And if a person considers that these little plants
bear their own seed as well as oaks or pines, or that the animalculæ
I was speaking of are multiplied by generation as well as elephants
or whales, whither will not such observations lead? Who can have made
things so fine and so exceedingly small as to be imperceptible to the
naked eye, and which, like the heavens, border upon the infinite,
though in the other extreme? Is it not the same Being who has created,
and moves with so much facility, the heavens and the stars, those vast
bodies so terrible in their dimensions, their altitude, celerity, and
revolutions?
(45.) Man enjoys the sun, the stars, the heavens and their influences,
as much as he does the air he breathes, and the earth on which he
treads and by which he is supported. This is a matter of fact; and if
every fact were to be illustrated by fitness and verisimilitude, they
could be deduced from them, as the heavens and all they contain are not
to be compared for grandeur and dignity to one of the meanest men on
earth, there being the same proportion between them and him as there
is between matter destitute of sensation, a mere space having three
dimensions, and a spiritual, reasonable, and intelligent being.[890] If
people argue that less would have served for the preservation of man, I
reply that it is not too much to display the power, the goodness, and
the magnificence of God, as He could do infinitely more than He has
done, whatever we perceive He has done.
If the whole world were made for man, it is literally the smallest
thing God has done for man, and this may be proved by religion. Man
is therefore neither presumptuous nor vain, when he submits to the
evidences of truth, and owns the advantages he has received; he might
be accused of blindness and stupidity, did he refuse to yield to the
multitude of proofs which religion lays before him, to show him the
privileges he enjoys, his resources, his expectations, and to teach
him what he is and what he may be.—But the moon is inhabited, at least
we do not know but it may be.—Why do you mention the moon, Lucilius,
and for what purpose? If you own there is a God, nothing, indeed, is
impossible.
But do you mean to ask whether in the entire universe it is on us alone
that God has bestowed such great blessings; whether there are not other
men or other creatures in the moon, who have received such favours?
What a vain curiosity and what a frivolous question, Lucilius! The
earth is inhabited, we dwell there and we know we do; we have proofs,
demonstrations, and convictions for everything we believe of God and of
ourselves; let the nations who inhabit the celestial globes, whatever
those nations may be, attend to their concerns; they have their
troubles, and we have ours. You have observed the moon, Lucilius; you
have seen its spots, depth, inequalities, altitude, extent, course, and
its eclipses; and no astronomer has yet done more; now contrive some
new instruments; observe it again, and see whether it is inhabited,
and by what species of inhabitants, whether they are like men, or are
really men. When you have done this, let me look, that we both may be
convinced that there are men who inhabit the moon; and then, Lucilius,
we will consider whether these men are Christians or no; and whether
God has bestowed on them the same favours He has granted us.
(46.) Everything is great and wonderful in nature; there is nothing
which does not bear the stamp of the artist;[891] the irregular and
imperfect things we sometimes observe imply regularity and perfection.
Vain and presumptuous man: make a worm which you trample under foot and
despise; you are afraid of a toad; make a toad, if you can. What an
excellent artist is He who makes those things which men not only admire
but fear! I do not require you to go into your studio to create a man
of sense, a well-shaped man, a handsome woman, for such an undertaking
would be too hard and too difficult for you; only attempt to create a
hunchback, a madman, a monster, and I will be satisfied.
Ye kings, monarchs, potentates, anointed majesties, have I given you
all your pompous titles? Ye great men of this earth, high and mighty,
and perhaps shortly almighty lords, we ordinary men, for the ripening
of our harvests, stand in need of a little rain, or what is less, of a
little dew; make some dew, or send down upon the surface of the earth
one drop of water.
The order, the picturesqueness, and the effects of nature are commonly
known, but its causes and principles are not so. Ask a woman what is
the cause the eye sees as soon as it is opened, and ask a learned man
the same question.
(47.) Many millions of years, nay, many thousand millions of years,
in a word, as many as can be comprehended within the limits of time,
are but an instant compared to the duration of God, who is eternal;
the extent of the whole universe is but a point, an atom, compared to
His immensity. If this be so, as I affirm it is, for what proportion
can there be between the finite and infinite, I ask what is the length
of manʼs life, or what the extent of that speck of dust which is
called the earth, nay, of the small part of that earth man owns and
inhabits?—The wicked prosper whilst they live.—Yes, some of them,
I admit. Virtue is oppressed and vice remains unpunished on this
earth.—This happens sometimes, I acknowledge it.—This is unjust.—No,
not at all. You should have proved, to warrant this inference, that the
wicked are absolutely happy, that virtue is absolutely miserable, and
that vice always remains unpunished; that the short time in which the
good are oppressed and the wicked prosper is of some duration, and that
what we call prosperity and good fortune is something more than a false
appearance, a fleeting shadow; and that this atom, the earth, in which
virtue and vice so seldom meet with their deserts, is the only spot of
the worldʼs stage where people receive rewards and punishments.[892]
I cannot more clearly infer that because I am thinking I am a spirit,
than conclude from what I do or do not, according as I please, that I
am free. Now freedom implies the power of choosing,[893] or, in other
words, a voluntary determination for good or evil, so that virtue or
vice consists in the doing a good or a bad action. If vice were to
remain absolutely unpunished, it would be a real injustice, but for
vice to remain unpunished on earth is merely a mystery. However, let
us suppose, with the atheist, that it is an injustice; all injustice
is a negation or privation of justice, and therefore every injustice
presupposes justice. All justice is in conformity to a sovereign
reason, and thus I ask, when was it against reason for crime to remain
unpunished? At the time, I suppose, when a triangle had not three
angles. Now, all conformity to reason is truth; this conformity, as I
said just now, always subsisted, and is of the number of those truths
we call eternal. But this truth either is not and cannot be, or else
it is the object of an intelligence; this intelligence is therefore
eternal, and is God.
The most secret crimes are discovered so simply and easily,
notwithstanding the great care which the guilty take to prevent their
being brought to light, that it seems God alone could have detected
them. These discoveries are so frequent, that those who are pleased to
attribute them to chance, must acknowledge, at least, that in all ages,
chance seems to have been very regular in its operations.
(48.) If you suppose every man on earth, without exception, to be rich
and to want nothing, I infer that every man on earth is extremely poor,
and in want of everything. There are but two sorts of riches which
comprehend all the rest, money and land; if all people were rich, who
would cultivate land or toil in mines? Those who live away from any
mines could not toil in them, and those who dwell on barren lands,
where only minerals are found, could hardly gather any fruits from
them. Trade is the expedient people would have recourse to, I suppose.
But if riches should be abundant, and no man under the necessity of
living by labour, who will transport your ingots, or anything that
is bought and sold, from one place to another? Who will fit out
your ships and sail them? Who would travel in caravans? Everything
that is necessary and useful would then be wanting. If necessity no
longer existed on this earth, we would need no longer arts, sciences,
inventions, handicrafts. Besides, such an equality of riches and
possessions would establish the same equality in all ranks and
conditions of men; would banish all subordination, and reduce men to be
their own servants and to receive no help nor succour from one another;
it would make the laws idle and useless, bring in a universal anarchy,
and produce violence, outrages, murders, and impunity.
If, on the other hand, you suppose all men to be poor and indigent,
then the sun in vain rises on the horizon; in vain it warms and
fructifies the earth; in vain the heavens shed their benign influence
on it; in vain rivers water it with their streams; in vain the fields
abound with fruits; in vain seas, rocks, and mountains are ransacked
and rifled of their treasures. If you grant that, of all men who
are scattered throughout the world, some have to be rich and others
poor, then necessity must naturally unite and bind them together and
reconcile them; some will have to serve and obey, invent, labour,
cultivate the earth, and make improvements; others enjoy life, live
well, assist, protect, and govern the masses. Order is restored, and
Providence appears.
(49.) Suppose authority, pleasure, and idleness to be the share of some
men, and subjection, care, and misery the lot of the rest, then either
the malignity of men must have thrown things into this disorder, or
else God is not God.
A certain inequality in the condition of men is conducive to the order
and welfare of the whole, is the work of God, or presupposes a divine
law; but too great a disproportion, and such as is generally seen
amongst men, is their own work, or caused by the law of the strongest.
Extremes are faulty, and proceed from men; all compensation is just,
and proceeds from God.
* * * * *
If these “CHARACTERS” are not liked, I shall be astonished; and if they
are, my astonishment will not be less.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pascalʼs _Pensées_ were published in 1670, six years after their
authorʼs death; La Rochefoucauldʼs _Maximes_ appeared in 1665, and
of both works from five to six editions had been sold before the
“Characters” saw the light. I have borrowed the definition of these
authorsʼ labours from La Bruyèreʼs “Prefatory Discourse concerning
Theophrastus,” which came out at the same time as the “Characters,” and
served as an introduction.
[2] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Characters,” page v.
[3] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of
the French Academy, June 15, 1693,” which preface was published for the
first time with the eighth edition of the “Characters,” in 1694.
[4] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Characters,” page i.
[5] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of
the French Academy, June 15, 1693.”
[6] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of
the French Academy, June 15, 1693.”
[7] Sir Walter Scott, in his introduction to Drydenʼs “Absalom and
Achitophel,” says: “He who collects a gallery of portraits disclaims,
by the very act of doing so, any intention of presenting a series of
historical events.”
[8] It was the custom in Paris, at the time La Bruyère wrote, for any
gentleman or lady to leave part of their gains on the table, to pay, as
it were, for the cards; hence the allusion.
[9] All the passages on pages _15_ and _16_ between inverted commas (“ ”)
have been taken from La Bruyèreʼs “Prefatory Discourse concerning
Theophrastus.”
[10] See the Chapter “Of the Great,” page 230, § 25. When, in the
Chapter “Of Certain Customs,” page 408, § 14, he speaks of his “descent
from a certain Godfrey de la Bruyère,” he does so jocularly.
[11] Compare “Preface,” page iv., “I did not hesitate,” till page v.,
“and more regular.”
[12] In his “Introduction to the Reader,” printed before “Absalom and
Achitophel,” and published in 1681, Dryden openly admits: “I have laid
in for those, by rebating the satire, where justice would allow it,
from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to
imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced at their own cost that I
can write severely with more ease than I can write gently.” La Bruyère
would never have ventured to speak so plainly, and this difference
between the French and English author seems very characteristic of the
two nations. Compare also Drydenʼs poetic delineation of Buckingham as
Zimri to La Bruyèreʼs portrait of Lauzun as Straton.
[13] Perhaps no author is more quoted in Littréʼs _Dictionnaire de la
langue française_ than La Bruyère is.
[14] M. G. Servois, in his bibliographic Notice of La Bruyèreʼs
works, &c., vol. iii., first part, quotes a passage from the London
correspondent of the _Histoire des Ouvrages des savants_ (see page
19, note 3) in affirmation of this statement, and seems to think this
translation to have been the first edition of the one mentioned in No.
4.
[15] Wattʼs “Bibliotheca Britannica.”
[16] According to M. Servois, this edition is mentioned in Lowndesʼ
“The Bibliographerʼs Manual,” but I have not been able to find it there.
[17] I imagine I can observe slight traces of La Bruyère in Swiftʼs
“Account of the Empire of Japan, written in 1728,” beginning with the
words: “Regoge was the 34th emperor of Japan;” in nearly all he wrote
for the Tatler; in many of the portraits to be found in the Examiner,
for example in the portrait of “Laurence Hyde, late earl of Rochester,”
beginning with the words: “The person who now presides at the Council,
etc.” Compare also “A Short Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton;” the
“Narrative of Guiscardʼs Examination;” and in the “True Relation of the
Intended Riot,” the passage beginning with “the surprising generosity,
and fit of housekeeping the German princess has been guilty of this
summer.” Swift, moreover, possesses a far more trenchant style than the
French author, but I imagine the latter did as much execution, though
he used a rapier, whilst Swift employed a bludgeon.
[18] There are few portraits in Shaftesburyʼs “Characteristics;” one of
the few exceptions being the portrait of “a notable enthusiast of the
itinerant kind,” supposed to be Van Helmont; now and then, however, he
seems to have borrowed a few ideas of La Bruyère, as for example, in
the second section of “A Letter concerning Enthusiasm,” his remarks on
criticism and ridicule. Compare also Shaftesbury in section 2, saying:
“The vulgar, indeed, may swallow any sordid jest, any mere drollery or
buffoonery; but it must be a finer and truer wit which takes the men of
sense and breeding,” to La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Works of the Mind,”
§§ 51, 52; the whole of this “Letter” is somewhat like La Bruyère, as
in section iv. the crafty beggars, addressing some one they meet in a
coach, and of whose quality they are ignorant. In Shaftesburyʼs “Sensus
Communis, an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour,” part 1, section
3, his remarks about true raillery; and the opening of the second
part, section 1: “If a native of Ethiopia were of a sudden transported
into Europe,” etc., as well as in the “Soliloquy,” the allegory of the
love-spent nobleman, and in the “Moralists” the portraits of Palemon,
Philocles, and Theocles, and the opening of the third part, “it was yet
deep night,” appear somewhat like reminiscences of the French author.
[19] “English Philosophers:” Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. By Thomas
Fowler, President of Corpus Christi College: London, 1882.
[20] It will, of course, be impossible to give “chapter and verse”
for every passage of the “Spectator” which is faintly like one of La
Bruyèreʼs observations, nor do I mean to say that Addison, Steele, and
the other contributors to the English paper borrowed literally, and
without acknowledgment, from the French author. But what I intended to
convey was that, though the humour of the Spectator and its Sir Roger
de Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport, Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry,
&c., are pre-eminently English, several of the remarks and portraits
to be found there are more or less inspired by a careful study of La
Bruyère. Compare for example Addisonʼs paper about the opera, Spectator
No. 5, to § 47 of La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Works of the Mind;” and
the remarks in No. 10 of the Spectator, about the occupations of the
female world, and Nos. 144, 156, and No. 265 of the same paper, with
some paragraphs of La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Women.” Nos. 45, 57,
77, 88, 98, 100, 129, 193, 236, 238, and 494, appear to me somewhat
like several of La Bruyèreʼs paragraphs. The “fair youth” in No. 104
of the “Spectator” is not unlike a reverse picture of La Bruyèreʼs
portrait of Iphis in the Chapter “Of Fashion,” page 389, § 14; whilst
the remark in No. 226, “Who is the better man for beholding the most
beautiful Venus,” &c., reminds one of La Bruyèreʼs remark on obscene
“pictures painted for certain princes of the Church,” in his Chapter
“Of Certain Customs,” page 409, § 17. Steeleʼs opinions about corporal
punishments (Spectator, No. 157) are very much in advance of those of
La Bruyère on the same subject; the English author remarks about Louis
XIV. (Spectator, No. 180 and 200) should be compared with La Bruyèreʼs
glorification of the same monarch.
[21] I have consulted the edition of Dr. R. Southʼs sermons, eleven
vols., the first six published by H. Lintot, 1732; the last five by
Charles Bathurst, 1744. In the sermon preached at Westminster Abbey,
February 22, 1684-85, on Prov. xvi. 33: “The lot is cast into the lap,”
&c., the passage about Alexander the Great, in his famed expedition
against Darius, the remarks about Hannibal and Cæsar, Agathocles, the
potter who became King, Masaniello, and finally what the Doctor says
about Cromwell: “and who, that had beheld such a bankrupt beggarly
fellow as Cromwell first entering the Parliament House, with a
threadbare, torn cloak, and a greasy hat (and perhaps neither of them
paid for), could have suspected that in the space of so few years,
he should, by the murder of one king, and the banishment of another,
ascend the throne, be invested in the royal robes, and want nothing of
the state of a king, but the changing of his hat into a crown,” seem
like some expressions of La Bruyère. Compare also sermon x.: “Good
Intentions no Excuse for Bad Actions,” full of pithy characteristics
in word-painting, and his sermons: “The Fatal Imposture and Force of
Words,” Isaiah v. 20, “Woe unto them that call evil good and good
evil,” which are very La Bruyèresque, and somewhat like several
paragraphs of the Chapter “Of Certain Customs.” See also in “The Nature
and Measures of Conscience,” a sermon preached Nov. 1, 1691, the
portrait of the “potent sinner upon earth,” and a sermon on “Pretence
of Conscience no Excuse for Rebellion,” preached before Charles II.,
13th January, 1662-63, the anniversary of the “execrable murder” of
Charles I., in which South says, “I wonder where the blasphemy lies
which some charge upon those who make the kingʼs suffering something to
resemble our Saviourʼs.” Compare finally the portrait of the “cozening,
lying, perjured shop-keeper” in the second sermon, “On Avarice as
contradictory to Religion,” with La Bruyèreʼs tradesman in his Chapter
“Of the Gifts of Fortune,” § 43.