Seers’ affairs Fortune not eyesight rules,
nor yet the eyes, which Plato calls light-bearers; and again,
Hearers’ affairs are by blind Fortune ruled,
and not by a certain power receptive of the strokes of the air,
conveyed to it through the organ of the ear and brain. It would beseem
us then, doubtless, to pay a due respect to our sense. But our sight,
hearing, and smelling, with the other parts of our bodies’ faculties,
were bestowed upon us by nature to minister unto good conduct and
discretion. And “It is the mind that sees, and the mind that hears; the
rest are deaf and blind.” And as, were there not a sun, we might, for
all the other stars, pass our days in darkness (as Heraclitus says); so
had man neither mind nor reason, his life would be, for all his senses,
nothing better than that of brutes. But it is by neither Fortune nor
chance that we exceed them and bear sway over them; but Prometheus
(that is, reason) is the cause,
Which gives both horse and ass and oxen strong,
To carry us and ease our labor long,[226]
as Aeschylus speaks. For the greater part of brutes are much happier
than we, as to the fortune and form of their constitution; for some of
them are armed with horns, some with teeth, and some with stings; and
the urchin’s back, (saith Empedocles) bristles with prickly thorns;
others again are shod, others are clad with scales, others with shaggy
hair, and others with hard claws and hoofs; but man alone (as Plato
speaks) was left by Nature naked, unarmed, unshod, and uncovered. But
all those ills she sweetened with one gift,—reason, care, and forecast.
Small is the strength of poor frail man;
Yet by his shifting wit he can
Enslave the arts and properties
Of all on land, in sea and skies.
The lightest and swiftest things are horses; but they run for man. A
dog is a fierce and an angry animal; but it guards man. Fish is the
sweetest thing, and swine the fattest; but they are man’s nourishment
and cheer. What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become
man’s plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities, and it learns
to skip, dance, and kneel. Such things as these are not introduced in
vain, but that we may learn by them whither knowledge advances man,
and above what things it sets him, and how he comes to be master, and
exceed all other things.
For we nor boxers nor good wrestlers are,
Nor yet good runners.[227]
Yea, in all these we are far more unhappy than the brutes. But by our
experience, memory, wit, and dexterity (as Anaxagoras speaks) we make
use of what is theirs; we press out their honey, we milk them, we
catch them, and drive them up and down as we please. So that in all
this there is nothing that depends on Fortune, but all on counsel and
forecast.
4. Moreover, the affairs of carpenters are affairs of mortals, and so
are those of copper-founders, builders, and statuaries; amongst whom
yet we can see nothing brought to perfection by chance or at random.
For that there falls in but little of Fortune to an expert artist,
whether founder or builder, but that the most and greatest part of
their workmanship is performed by mere art, hath been thus insinuated
by a certain poet:
Go forth into the street, ye craftsmen all,
Who on grim-visaged Ergana do call,
That’s stuck with sacred baskets all around.
For the trades have Ergana and Minerva for their patroness, and not
Fortune. It is indeed reported of one that, as he was drawing a horse
and had hit right in all the rest, both shapes and colors, but was not
well satisfied with the draught he had made of a puff of froth that
was tempered by the bit and wrought out with the horse’s breathing,
he therefore had often wiped it off; but that at length he in a great
fume struck his sponge full of colors, as it was, against the board,
and that this, as it lighted, to admiration made a most lively impress,
and so filled up what was defective in the piece. This is the only
artificial work of Fortune that history mentions. Artists everywhere
make use of rules, lines, measures, and arithmetical proportions,
that their works may nowhere have in them any thing that is casual or
fortuitous. And the truth is, arts are styled a sort of petty wisdoms,
though they might be much better called certain sheddings or filings
of it sprinkled upon the several needful services of human life; as is
obscurely riddled to us in the fire feigned to have been first divided
by Prometheus, and then scattered up and down the world. For just so,
certain little particles and fragments of wisdom as it were crumbled
and broken small fell into ranks and methods.
5. It seems therefore very strange how it came to pass that arts should
stand in no need of Fortune to compass their proper end, but that which
is the greatest and most complete of all arts, and which is the very
sum of man’s worth and commendation, should prove to be nothing at all.
But there is a kind of good counsel in stretching and slackening of
strings, which they call the art of music; and in dressing of meats,
which we call cookery; and in washing of clothes, which we call the art
of fulling; and we teach our children how to put on their shoes and
clothes, and to take their meat in their right hand, and hold their
bread in their left; as being sensible that even such common things
as these do not come by Fortune, but require attention and heed. But
do the greatest things and the most important to a happy state require
no wisdom, and have no share in rational proceeding and forecast? Yet
no man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks
by chance and Fortune; nor, having provided wool and leather, sat
him down and prayed to Fortune that they might be made clothes and
shoes for him; nor can any man, when he hath amassed together much
gold and silver, and furnished himself with a multitude of slaves and
attendants, and enclosed himself in a great palace with many gates,
and set out costly couches and tables, fancy to himself that, if he
have not wisdom with them, these things will be his happiness, and an
undisturbed, blissful, and unchangeable life. One asked Iphicrates the
general, by way of taunt, what he was? For he was neither spearman nor
archer, nor yet bore light armor. I am (replied he) one that commands
and uses all these.
6. In like manner wisdom is itself neither gold nor silver nor fame
nor wealth nor health nor strength nor beauty. What then is it? It is
what can use all these with decorum, and by means of which every one
of these is made pleasant, commendable, and useful, and without which
they become useless, unprofitable, and prejudicial, and the burthen and
shame of their possessors. Hesiod’s Prometheus therefore gives very
good advice to Epimetheus:
Brother, be sure you never take
A boon from Jove, but giv’t him back,[228]
meaning things of Fortune and external. For, as if he had bid him not
to play on a flute if ignorant of music, nor to read a book if he
knew not his letters, nor to ride if he understood not a horse, so
it would be if he advised him not to govern if a fool, nor to be a
rich man if a miser, and not to marry if apt to be ruled by a woman.
For success above desert is to fools an occasion of misthinking, as
Demosthenes[229] saith; yes, and good fortune above desert is to the
unwise an occasion of misdoing.