THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
_Moriae Encomium, The Praise of Folly_: 1509, as a work of
art--Folly, the motor of all life: Indispensable, salutary,
cause and support of states and of heroism--Folly keeps the
world going--Vital energy incorporated with folly--Lack of folly
makes unfit for life--Need of self-complacency--Humbug beats
truth--Knowledge a plague--Satire of all secular and
ecclesiastical vocations--Two themes throughout the work--The
highest folly: Ecstasy--The _Moria_ to be taken as a gay
jest--Confusion of fools and lunatics--Erasmus treats his
_Moria_ slightingly--Its value
While he rode over the mountain passes,[11] Erasmus's restless spirit,
now unfettered for some days by set tasks, occupied itself with
everything he had studied and read in the last few years, and with
everything he had seen. What ambition, what self-deception, what pride
and conceit filled the world! He thought of Thomas More, whom he was now
to see again--that most witty and wise of all his friends, with that
curious name _Moros_, the Greek word for a fool, which so ill became his
personality. Anticipating the gay jests which More's conversation
promised, there grew in his mind that masterpiece of humour and wise
irony, _Moriae Encomium_, the _Praise of Folly_. The world as the scene
of universal folly; folly as the indispensable element making life and
society possible and all this put into the mouth of Stultitia--Folly--
itself (true antitype of Minerva), who in a panegyric on her own power
and usefulness, praises herself. As to form it is a _Declamatio_, such
as he had translated from the Greek of Libanius. As to the spirit, a
revival of Lucian, whose _Gallus_, translated by him three years before,
may have suggested the theme. It must have been in the incomparably
lucid moments of that brilliant intellect. All the particulars of
classic reading which the year before he worked up in the new edition of
the _Adagia_ were still at his immediate disposal in that retentive and
capacious memory. Reflecting at his ease on all that wisdom of the
ancients, he secreted the juices required for his expostulation.
He arrived in London, took up his abode in More's house in Bucklersbury,
and there, tortured by nephritic pains, he wrote down in a few days,
without having his books with him, the perfect work of art that must
have been ready in his mind. Stultitia was truly born in the manner of
her serious sister Pallas.
As to form and imagery the _Moria_ is faultless, the product of the
inspired moments of creative impulse. The figure of an orator
confronting her public is sustained to the last in a masterly way. We
see the faces of the auditors light up with glee when Folly appears in
the pulpit; we hear the applause interrupting her words. There is a
wealth of fancy, coupled with so much soberness of line and colour, such
reserve, that the whole presents a perfect instance of that harmony
which is the essence of Renaissance expression. There is no exuberance,
in spite of the multiplicity of matter and thought, but a temperateness,
a smoothness, an airiness and clearness which are as gladdening as they
are relaxing. In order perfectly to realize the artistic perfection of
Erasmus's book we should compare it with Rabelais.
'Without me', says Folly, 'the world cannot exist for a moment. For is
not all that is done at all among mortals, full of folly; is it not
performed by fools and for fools?' 'No society, no cohabitation can be
pleasant or lasting without folly; so much so, that a people could not
stand its prince, nor the master his man, nor the maid her mistress, nor
the tutor his pupil, nor the friend his friend, nor the wife her husband
for a moment longer, if they did not now and then err together, now
flatter each other; now sensibly conniving at things, now smearing
themselves with some honey of folly.' In that sentence the summary of
the _Laus_ is contained. Folly here is worldly wisdom, resignation and
lenient judgement.
He who pulls off the masks in the comedy of life is ejected. What is the
whole life of mortals but a sort of play in which each actor appears on
the boards in his specific mask and acts his part till the stage-manager
calls him off? He acts wrongly who does not adapt himself to existing
conditions, and demands that the game shall be a game no longer. It is
the part of the truly sensible to mix with all people, either conniving
readily at their folly, or affably erring like themselves.
And the necessary driving power of all human action is 'Philautia',
Folly's own sister: self-love. He who does not please himself effects
little. Take away that condiment of life and the word of the orator
cools, the poet is laughed at, the artist perishes with his art.
Folly in the garb of pride, of vanity, of vainglory, is the hidden
spring of all that is considered high and great in this world. The state
with its posts of honour, patriotism and national pride; the stateliness
of ceremonies, the delusion of caste and nobility--what is it but folly?
War, the most foolish thing of all, is the origin of all heroism. What
prompted the Deciuses, what Curtius, to sacrifice themselves? Vainglory.
It is this folly which produces states; through her, empires, religion,
law-courts, exist.
This is bolder and more chilling than Machiavelli, more detached than
Montaigne. But Erasmus will not have it credited to him: it is Folly who
speaks. He purposely makes us tread the round of the _circulus
vitiosus_, as in the old saw: A Cretan said, all Cretans are liars.
Wisdom is to folly as reason is to passion. And there is much more
passion than reason in the world. That which keeps the world going, the
fount of life, is folly. For what else is love? Why do people marry, if
not out of folly, which sees no objections? All enjoyment and amusement
is only a condiment of folly. When a wise man wishes to become a father,
he has first to play the fool. For what is more foolish than the game of
procreation?
Unperceived the orator has incorporated here with folly all that is
vitality and the courage of life. Folly is spontaneous energy that no
one can do without. He who is perfectly sensible and serious cannot
live. The more people get away from me, Stultitia, the less they live.
Why do we kiss and cuddle little children, if not because they are still
so delightfully foolish. And what else makes youth so elegant?
Now look at the truly serious and sensible. They are awkward at
everything, at meal-time, at a dance, in playing, in social intercourse.
If they have to buy, or to contract, things are sure to go wrong.
Quintilian says that stage fright bespeaks the intelligent orator, who
knows his faults. Right! But does not, then, Quintilian confess openly
that wisdom is an impediment to good execution? And has not Stultitia
the right to claim prudence for herself, if the wise, out of shame, out
of bashfulness, undertake nothing in circumstances where fools pluckily
set to work?
Here Erasmus goes to the root of the matter in a psychological sense.
Indeed the consciousness of falling short in achievement is the brake
clogging action, is the great inertia retarding the progress of the
world. Did he know himself for one who is awkward when not bending over
his books, but confronting men and affairs?
Folly is gaiety and lightheartedness, indispensable to happiness. The
man of mere reason without passion is a stone image, blunt and without
any human feeling, a spectre or monster, from whom all fly, deaf to all
natural emotions, susceptible neither to love nor compassion. Nothing
escapes him, in nothing he errs; he sees through everything, he weighs
everything accurately, he forgives nothing, he is only satisfied with
himself; he alone is healthy; he alone is king, he alone is free. It is
the hideous figure of the doctrinaire which Erasmus is thinking of.
Which state, he exclaims, would desire such an absolutely wise man for a
magistrate?
He who devotes himself to tasting all the bitterness of life with wise
insight would forthwith deprive himself of life. Only folly is a remedy:
to err, to be mistaken, to be ignorant is to be human. How much better
it is in marriage to be blind to a wife's shortcomings than to make away
with oneself out of jealousy and to fill the world with tragedy!
Adulation is virtue. There is no cordial devotion without a little
adulation. It is the soul of eloquence, of medicine and poetry; it is
the honey and the sweetness of all human customs.
Again a series of valuable social qualities is slyly incorporated with
folly: benevolence, kindness, inclination to approve and to admire.
But especially to approve of oneself. There is no pleasing others
without beginning by flattering ourselves a little and approving of
ourselves. What would the world be if everyone was not proud of his
standing, his calling, so that no person would change places with
another in point of good appearance, of fancy, of good family, of landed
property?
Humbug is the right thing. Why should any one desire true erudition? The
more incompetent a man, the pleasanter his life is and the more he is
admired. Look at professors, poets, orators. Man's mind is so made that
he is more impressed by lies than by the truth. Go to church: if the
priest deals with serious subjects the whole congregation is dozing,
yawning, feeling bored. But when he begins to tell some cock-and-bull
story, they awake, sit up, and hang on his lips.
To be deceived, philosophers say, is a misfortune, but not to be
deceived is a superlative misfortune. If it is human to err, why should
a man be called unhappy because he errs, since he was so born and made,
and it is the fate of all? Do we pity a man because he cannot fly or
does not walk on four legs? We might as well call the horse unhappy
because it does not learn grammar or eat cakes. No creature is unhappy,
if it lives according to its nature. The sciences were invented to our
utmost destruction; far from conducing to our happiness, they are even
in its way, though for its sake they are supposed to have been invented.
By the agency of evil demons they have stolen into human life with the
other pests. For did not the simple-minded people of the Golden Age live
happily, unprovided with any science, only led by nature and instinct?
What did they want grammar for, when all spoke the same language? Why
have dialectics, when there were no quarrels and no differences of
opinion? Why jurisprudence, when there were no bad morals from which
good laws sprang? They were too religious to investigate with impious
curiosity the secrets of nature, the size, motions, influence of the
stars, the hidden cause of things.
It is the old idea, which germinated in antiquity, here lightly touched
upon by Erasmus, afterwards proclaimed by Rousseau in bitter earnest:
civilization is a plague.
Wisdom is misfortune, but self-conceit is happiness. Grammarians, who
wield the sceptre of wisdom--schoolmasters, that is--would be the most
wretched of all people if I, Folly, did not mitigate the discomforts of
their miserable calling by a sort of sweet frenzy. But what holds good
of schoolmasters, also holds good of poets, orators, authors. For them,
too, all happiness merely consists in vanity and delusion. The lawyers
are no better off and after them come the philosophers. Next there is a
numerous procession of clergy: divines, monks, bishops, cardinals,
popes, only interrupted by princes and courtiers.
In the chapters[12] which review these offices and callings, satire has
shifted its ground a little. Throughout the work two themes are
intertwined: that of salutary folly, which is true wisdom, and that of
deluded wisdom, which is pure folly. As they are both put into the mouth
of Folly, we should have to invert them both to get truth, if Folly ...
were not wisdom. Now it is clear that the first is the principal theme.
Erasmus starts from it; and he returns to it. Only in the middle, as he
reviews human accomplishments and dignities in their universal
foolishness, the second theme predominates and the book becomes an
ordinary satire on human folly, of which there are many though few are
so delicate. But in the other parts it is something far deeper.
Occasionally the satire runs somewhat off the line, when Stultitia
directly censures what Erasmus wishes to censure; for instance,
indulgences, silly belief in wonders, selfish worship of the saints; or
gamblers whom she, Folly, ought to praise; or the spirit of
systematizing and levelling, and the jealousy of the monks.
For contemporary readers the importance of the _Laus Stultitiae_ was, to
a great extent, in the direct satire. Its lasting value is in those
passages where we truly grant that folly is wisdom and the reverse.
Erasmus knows the aloofness of the ground of all things: all consistent
thinking out of the dogmas of faith leads to absurdity. Only look at the
theological quiddities of effete scholasticism. The apostles would not
have understood them: in the eyes of latter-day divines they would have
been fools. Holy Scripture itself sides with folly. 'The foolishness of
God is wiser than men,' says Saint Paul. 'But God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world.' 'It pleased God by the foolishness (of
preaching) to save them that believe.' Christ loved the simple-minded
and the ignorant: children, women, poor fishermen, nay, even such
animals as are farthest removed from vulpine cunning: the ass which he
wished to ride, the dove, the lamb, the sheep.
Here there is a great deal behind the seemingly light jest: 'Christian
religion seems in general to have some affinity with a certain sort of
folly'. Was it not thought the apostles were full of new wine? And did
not the judge say: 'Paul, thou art beside thyself'? When are we beside
ourselves? When the spirit breaks its fetters and tries to escape from
its prison and aspires to liberty. That is madness, but it is also
other-worldliness and the highest wisdom. True happiness is in
selflessness, in the furore of lovers, whom Plato calls happiest of all.
The more absolute love is, the greater and more rapturous is the frenzy.
Heavenly bliss itself is the greatest insanity; truly pious people enjoy
its shadow on earth already in their meditations.
Here Stultitia breaks off her discourse, apologizing in a few words in
case she may have been too petulant or talkative, and leaves the pulpit.
'So farewell, applaud, live happily, and drink, Moria's illustrious
initiates.'
It was an unrivalled feat of art even in these last chapters neither to
lose the light comical touch, nor to lapse into undisguised profanation.
It was only feasible by veritable dancing on the tight-rope of
sophistry. In the _Moria_ Erasmus is all the time hovering on the brink
of profound truths. But what a boon it was--still granted to those
times--to be able to treat of all this in a vein of pleasantry. For this
should be impressed upon our minds: that the _Moriae Encomium_ is a
true, gay jest. The laugh is more delicate, but no less hearty than
Rabelais's. 'Valete, plaudite, vivite, bibite.' 'All common people
abound to such a degree, and everywhere, in so many forms of folly that
a thousand Democrituses would be insufficient to laugh at them all (and
they would require another Democritus to laugh at them).'
How could one take the _Moria_ too seriously, when even More's _Utopia_,
which is a true companion-piece to it and makes such a grave impression
on us, is treated by its author and Erasmus as a mere jest? There is a
place where the _Laus_ seems to touch both More and Rabelais; the place
where Stultitia speaks of her father, Plutus, the god of wealth, at
whose beck all things are turned topsy-turvy, according to whose will
all human affairs are regulated--war and peace, government and counsel,
justice and treaties. He has begotten her on the nymph Youth, not a
senile, purblind Plutus, but a fresh god, warm with youth and nectar,
like another Gargantua.
The figure of Folly, of gigantic size, looms large in the period of the
Renaissance. She wears a fool's cap and bells. People laughed loudly and
with unconcern at all that was foolish, without discriminating between
species of folly. It is remarkable that even in the _Laus_, delicate as
it is, the author does not distinguish between the unwise or the silly,
between fools and lunatics. Holbein, illustrating Erasmus, knows but of
one representation of a fool: with a staff and ass's ears. Erasmus
speaks without clear transition, now of foolish persons and now of real
lunatics. They are happiest of all, he makes Stultitia say: they are not
frightened by spectres and apparitions; they are not tortured by the
fear of impending calamities; everywhere they bring mirth, jests, frolic
and laughter. Evidently he here means harmless imbeciles, who, indeed,
were often used as jesters. This identification of denseness and
insanity is kept up, however, like the confusion of the comic and the
simply ridiculous, and all this is well calculated to make us feel how
wide the gap has already become that separates us from Erasmus.
* * * * *
In later years he always spoke slightingly of his _Moria_. He considered
it so unimportant, he says, as to be unworthy of publication, yet no
work of his had been received with such applause. It was a trifle and
not at all in keeping with his character. More had made him write it, as
if a camel were made to dance. But these disparaging utterances were not
without a secondary purpose. The _Moria_ had not brought him only
success and pleasure. The exceedingly susceptible age in which he lived
had taken the satire in very bad part, where it seemed to glance at
offices and orders, although in his preface he had tried to safeguard
himself from the reproach of irreverence. His airy play with the texts
of Holy Scripture had been too venturesome for many. His friend Martin
van Dorp upbraided him with having made a mock of eternal life. Erasmus
did what he could to convince evil-thinkers that the purpose of the
_Moria_ was no other than to exhort people to be virtuous. In affirming
this he did his work injustice: it was much more than that. But in 1515
he was no longer what he had been in 1509. Repeatedly he had been
obliged to defend his most witty work. Had he known that it would
offend, he might have kept it back, he writes in 1517 to an acquaintance
at Louvain. Even towards the end of his life, he warded off the
insinuations of Alberto Pio of Carpi in a lengthy expostulation.
Erasmus made no further ventures in the genre of the _Praise of Folly_.
One might consider the treatise _Lingua_, which he published in 1525, as
an attempt to make a companion-piece to the _Moria_. The book is called
_Of the Use and Abuse of the Tongue_. In the opening pages there is
something that reminds us of the style of the _Laus_, but it lacks all
the charm both of form and of thought.
Should one pity Erasmus because, of all his publications, collected in
ten folio volumes, only the _Praise of Folly_ has remained a really
popular book? It is, apart from the _Colloquies_, perhaps the only one
of his works that is still read for its own sake. The rest is now only
studied from a historical point of view, for the sake of becoming
acquainted with his person or his times. It seems to me that perfect
justice has been done in this case. The _Praise of Folly_ is his best
work. He wrote other books, more erudite, some more pious--some perhaps
of equal or greater influence on his time. But each has had its day.
_Moriae Encomium_ alone was to be immortal. For only when humour
illuminated that mind did it become truly profound. In the _Praise of
Folly_ Erasmus gave something that no one else could have given to the
world.
[Illustration: XI. The last page of the _Praise of Folly_, with
Holbein's drawing of Folly descending from the pulpit]
[Illustration: XII. THE PRINTING PRESS OF JOSSE BADIUS]
FOOTNOTES:
[11] That he conceived the work in the Alps follows from the fact that
he tells us explicitly that it happened while riding, whereas, after
passing through Switzerland, he travelled by boat. A. 1, IV 216.62.
[12] Erasmus did not divide the book into chapters. It was done by an
editor as late as 1765.