XIV. Men, by affecting to despise others who know more than themselves,
make use of the most vile and mean artifices imaginable; but
notwithstanding this, it is the most sure method, to make them pass for
persons of great knowledge, among people of groveling and plebeian minds.
There can be no greater injustice committed, nor a vainer effort made,
than that, of an envious man’s attempting to transfer the merit which he
has purloined from another person to himself. It is true, that a small
cloud may obstruct the splendor of the sun; but this obstruction does
not prevent this luminary from being the illustrious torch of heaven,
nor can such a circumstance be of more consequence than a speck in the
atmosphere; nor does it require any science or learning, to enable a
man to cast a thousand reflections and blemishes upon other people’s
doctrines and writings. When there is no reason to conclude that such
behaviour proceeds from envy or malevolence, we ought to suppose that
it springs from pure ignorance. I remember to have read in a Treatise
intitled The Man of Letters, written by Father Daniel Bartoli, that an
ass once happening to stumble over the Iliad of Homer, he in a passion
tore it to pieces with his teeth. Thus, in order to outrage, abuse, and
destroy a noble writing, nothing is better qualified than a beast.
XV. Being tenacious, insolent, and overbearing in argument, is also
another means, which, although it is equally base and bad with the
beforementioned, is sometimes very efficacious to gain a person
the reputation of being a learned man.—Foolish people, such as the
Megalopolitans, of whom we have an account in Pausanias, pay greater
veneration to Boreas the god of the north-wind than to any other
deity, and are apt to adore tumultuous geniuses as beings of supreme
intelligence; and although it is absolutely irreconcileable and
incompatible with it, to look upon barefaced arrogance as the child of
superior learning. To this we may add another thing, that may have an
effect to make them pass for wise and able persons, which is, that those
who are truly learned, avoid as much as possible, all controversy or
dispute with people who are of this tenacious overbearing disposition;
and this prudent declining to contend with them, is often construed into
fear of engaging them; as if it was necessary for men of learning, in
order to shew their spirit, to encounter reptiles and venomous snakes.
Cato’s lamentation, or repentance, was just and generous, when he
regretted having led his troops into the burning deserts of Africa, where
they had no other enemies to encounter but asps, horned serpents, vipers,
fiery serpents, and basilisks. The horrors of the civil war in the plains
of Pharsalia, where they engaged the invincible troops of Cæsar, appeared
to him less frightful, than those they experienced among the burning
sands of Libya, where the most vile and abominable reptiles fought on
Cæsar’s side,
_Pro Cæsare pugnant_
_Dipsades, et peragunt civilia bella Cerastæ._
XVI. He who can reconcile it to himself, to be inflexible in argument,
and to dispute without end, and with all his might, never suffering
himself to be convinced by reason, has made a large stride towards
being reputed an Aristotle among the vulgar; for they, with respect to
the wars of Minerva, as well as those of Mars, are apt to declare the
victory, in favour of him who remains longest in the field, and, in their
opinion, he never fails to come off conqueror, who has the last word.
This is the way the vulgar judge; but he who would be thought superior to
that class of people, must permit himself to be convinced by reason, for,
if he does not, instead of acquiring the reputation of a learned man by
such conduct, he lets himself down to the level of a brute.
The ingenious Doctor Luis Rodriguez, being asked what sort of a man a
shallow physician was with whom he had been arguing, answered pleasantly,
(although we must allow his wit favoured of the arrogance which is rather
too common with the Portuguese) _He is so great an ass, that goad him
ever so much, it is impossible to make him get on, or be the better for
any reasoning that is bestowed on him._
XVII. It is also a very common artifice with those who know but little,
to bring the conversation to turn upon that little they are informed of.
This is very easy for people of power or authority to do. I knew a person
of this sort myself, who, whatever conversation happened to arise in
company, was used to train the subject of it insensibly, to fall on the
few points relative to it, which he had been reading or studying that
day, or the day before, by which piece of management, he generally used
to appear more learned than the rest of the company. Even in scholastic
disputes, this art is often practised. I have more than twice in my life,
seen a good theologian foiled by a novice; who, by artfully sliding some
chimerical proposition into the dispute, has drawn the argument from its
proper object, and caused it to fall into a sumulistical labyrinth of
amplifications, restrictions, alienations, oppositions, conversions, and
equipolations; the rules of which were fresh in the young man’s memory,
and which the old theologian had forgot. This was adopting the craft of
the rogue Cacus, who, having artfully drawn Hercules into his own cave,
rendered his arms and superior strength of no use to him, by blinding him
with the smoak he continued to eject out of his mouth.