still; my fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it: and
all those who study without a book are in the same condition. The
figure of my study is round, and there is no more open wall than what
is taken up by my table and my chair, so that the remaining parts of
the circle present me a view of all my books at once, ranged upon five
rows of shelves around about me. It has three noble and free
prospects, and is sixteen paces in diameter I am not so continually
there in winter; for my house is built upon an eminence, as its name
imports, and no part of it is so much exposed to the wind and weather
as this, which pleases me the better, as being of more difficult
access and a little remote, as well upon the account of exercise, as
also being there more retired from the crowd. 'Tis there that I am in
my kingdom, and there I endeavor to make myself an absolute monarch,
and to sequester this one corner from all society, conjugal, filial,
and civil; elsewhere I have but verbal authority only, and of a
confused essence. That man, in my opinion, is very miserable, who has
not a home where to be by himself, where to entertain himself alone,
or to conceal himself from others. Ambition sufficiently plagues her
proselytes, by keeping them always in show, like the statue of a
public square: "Magna servitus est magna fortuna." They can not so
much as be private in the water-closet. I have thought nothing so
severe in the austerity of life that our monks affect, as what I have
observed in some of their communities; namely, by rule to have a
perpetual society of place, and numerous persons present in every
action whatever: and think it much more supportable to be always
alone, than never to be so.
If any one shall tell me that it is to undervalue the muses, to make
use of them only for sport and to pass away the time, I shall tell
him, that he does not know, so well as I, the value of the sport, the
pleasure, and the pastime; I can hardly forbear to add that all other
end is ridiculous. I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be
it spoken, I only live for myself; there all my designs terminate. I
studied, when young, for ostentation; since, to make myself a little
wiser; and now for my diversion, but never for any profit. A vain and
prodigal humor I had after this sort of furniture, not only for the
supplying my own need, but, moreover, for ornament and outward show, I
have since quite cured myself of.
Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them;
but every good has its ill; 'tis a pleasure that is not pure and
clean, no more than others: it has its inconveniences, and great ones
too. The soul indeed is exercised therein; but the body, the care of
which I must withal never neglect, remains in the mean time without
action, and grows heavy and somber. I know no excess more prejudicial
to me, nor more to be avoided in this my declining age.
IV
THAT THE SOUL DISCHARGES HER PASSIONS UPON FALSE OBJECTS WHERE TRUE
ONES ARE WANTING[22]
A gentleman of my country, who was very often tormented with the gout,
being importun'd by his physicians totally to reclaim his appetite
from all manner of salt meats, was wont presently to reply that he
must needs have something to quarrel with in the extremity of his
fits, and that he fancy'd that railing at and cursing one while the
Bologna sausages, and another the dry'd tongues and the hams, was some
mitigation to his pain. And in good earnest, as the arm when it is
advanced to strike, if it fail of meeting with that upon which it was
design'd to discharge the blow, and spends itself in vain, does offend
the striker himself; and as also, that to make a pleasant prospect the
sight should not be lost and dilated in a vast extent of empty air,
but have some bounds to limit and circumscribe it at a reasonable
distance:
"As winds do lose their strength, unless withstood
By some dark grove of strong opposing wood."
[Footnote 22: The translation of Cotton before it was revised by
Hazlitt.]
So it appears that the soul, being transported and discompos'd, turns
its violence upon itself, if not supply'd with something to oppose it,
and therefore always requires an enemy as an object on which to
discharge its fury and resentment. Plutarch says very well of those
who are delighted with little dogs and monkeys, that the amorous part
which is in us, for want of a legitimate object, rather than lie idle,
does after that manner forge, and create one frivolous and false; as
we see that the soul in the exercise of its passions inclines rather
to deceive itself, by creating a false and fantastical subject, even
contrary to its own relief, than not to have something to work upon.
And after this manner brute beasts direct their fury to fall upon the
stone or weapon that has hurt them, and with their teeth even execute
their revenge upon themselves, for the injury they have receiv'd from
another.
So the fierce bear, made fiercer by the smart
Of the bold Lybian's mortal guided dart,
Turns round upon the wound, and the tough spear
Contorted o'er her breast does flying bear
Down....
--_Claudian_.
What causes of the misadventures that befall us do we not invent? What
is it that we do not lay the fault to right or wrong, that we may have
something to quarrel with? Those beautiful tresses, young lady, you
may so liberally tear off, are no way guilty, nor is it the whiteness
of those delicate breasts you so unmercifully beat, that with an
unlucky bullet has slain your beloved brother: quarrel with something
else. Livy, Dec. 3, l. 5., speaking of the Roman army in Spain, says
that for the loss of two brothers, who were both great captains,
"_Flere omnes repente et offensare capita_," that they all wept, and
tore their hair. 'Tis the common practise of affliction. And the
philosopher Bion said pleasantly of the king, who by handfuls pull'd
his hair off his head for sorrow, "Does this man think that baldness
is a remedy for grief?" Who has not seen peevish gamesters worry the
cards with their teeth, and swallow whole bales of dice in revenge for
the loss of their money? Xerxes whipt the sea, and wrote a challenge
to Mount Athos; Cyrus employ'd a whole army several days at work, to
revenge himself of the river Gnidus, for the fright it had put him
into in passing over; and Caligula demolish'd a very beautiful palace
for the pleasure his mother had once enjoy'd there. I remember there
was a story current, when I was a boy, that one of our neighboring
kings, having receiv'd a blow from the hand of God, swore he would be
reveng'd, and in order to it, made proclamation that for ten years to
come no one should pray to him, or so much as mention him throughout
his dominions; by which we are not so much to take measure of the
folly, as the vain-glory of the nation of which this tale was told.
They are vices that, indeed, always go together; but such actions as
these have in them more of presumption than want of wit. Augustus
Cæsar, having been tost with a tempest at sea, fell to defying
Neptune, and in the pomp of the Circensian games, to be reveng'd,
depos'd his statue from the place it had amongst the other deities.
Wherein he was less excusable than the former, and less than he was
afterward, when having lost a battle under Quintilius Varus in
Germany, in rage and despair he went running his head against the
walls, and crying out, O Varus! give me my men again! for this exceeds
all folly, for as much as impiety is joined with it, invading God
himself, or at least Fortune, as if she had ears that were subject to
our batteries; like the Thracians, who, when it thunders, or lightens,
fall to shooting against heaven with Titanian madness, as if by
flights of arrows they intended to reduce God Almighty to reason. Tho
the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us,
"We must not quarrel heaven in our affairs."
But we can never enough decry nor sufficiently condemn the senseless
and ridiculous sallies of our unruly passions.
V
THAT MEN ARE NOT TO JUDGE OF OUR HAPPINESS TILL AFTER DEATH[23]
Every one is acquainted with the story of King Croesus to this
purpose, who being taken prisoner by Cyrus, and by him condemn'd to
die, as he was going to execution, cry'd out, "O Solon, Solon!" which
being presently reported to Cyrus, and he sending to inquire what it
meant, Croesus gave him to understand that he now found the
advertisement Solon had formerly given him true to his cost, which
was, "That men, however fortune may smile upon them, could never be
said to be happy, till they had been seen to pass over the last day
of their lives, by reason of the uncertainty and mutability of human
things, which upon very light and trivial occasions are subject to be
totally chang'd into a quite contrary condition."
[Footnote 23: The translation of Cotton, before it was revised by
Hazlitt.]
And therefore it was, that Agesilaus made answer to one that was
saying, "What a happy young man the King of Persia was to come so
young to so mighty a kingdom." "'Tis true [said he], but neither was
Priam unhappy at his years." In a short time, of kings of Macedon,
successors to that mighty Alexander, were made joyners and scriveners
at Rome; of a tyrant of Sicily, a pedant at Corinth; of a conqueror of
one-half of the world, and general of so many armies, a miserable
suppliant to the rascally officers of a king of Egypt. So much the
prolongation of five or six months of life cost the great and noble
Pompey, and no longer since than our fathers' days, Ludovico Sforza,
the tenth duke of Milan, whom all Italy had so long truckled under,
was seen to die a wretched prisoner at Loches, but not till he had
lived ten years in captivity, which was the worst part of his fortune.
The fairest of all queens (Mary, Queen of Scots), widow to the
greatest king in Europe,[24] did she not come to die by the hand of an
executioner? Unworthy and barbarous cruelty! and a thousand more
examples there are of the same kind; for it seems that as storms and
tempests have a malice to the proud and overtow'ring heights of our
lofty buildings, there are also spirits above that are envious of the
grandeurs here below.
[Footnote 24: Francis II of France, to whom she was married in 1558
and who died two years afterward.]
_Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quædam
Obterit, et pulchros fasces, sævasque secures
Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur._
--_Lucret._, l. 5.
And it should seem also that Fortune sometimes lies in wait to
surprize the last hour of our lives, to show the power she has in a
moment to overthrow what she was so many years in building, making us
cry out with Laborius, "_Nimirum hac die una plus vixi mihi quam
vivendum fuit._"--Macrob., l. 2., c. 2. "I have liv'd longer by this
one day than I ought to have done." And in this sense, this good
advice of Solon may reasonably be taken; but he being a philosopher,
with which sort of men the favors and disgraces of fortune stand for
nothing, either to the making a man happy or unhappy, and with whom
grandeurs and powers, accidents of quality, are upon the matter
indifferent: I am apt to think that he had some further aim, and that
his meaning was that the very felicity of life itself, which depends
upon the tranquillity and contentment of a well-descended spirit, and
the resolution and assurance of a well-order'd soul, ought never to be
attributed to any man, till he has first been seen to play the last,
and doubtless the hardest act of his part, because there may be
disguise and dissimulation in all the rest, where these fine
philosophical discourses are only put on; and where accidents do not
touch us to the quick, they give us leisure to maintain the same sober
gravity; but in this last scene of death, there is no more
counterfeiting; we must speak plain, and must discover what there is
of pure and clean in the bottom.
_Nam veræ voces tum demum pectore ab imo
Ejiciuntur, et eripitur persona manet res._
--_Lucret._, l. 3.
"Then that at last truth issues from the heart.
The vizor's gone, we act our own true part."
Wherefore at this last all the other actions of our life ought to be
try'd and sifted. 'Tis the master-day, 'tis the day that is judge of
all the rest, 'tis the day (says one of the ancients) that ought to
judge of all my foregoing years. To death do I refer the essay of the
fruit of all my studies. We shall then see whether my discourses came
only from my mouth or from my heart. I have seen many by their death
give a good or an ill repute to their whole life. Scipio, the
father-in-law of Pompey the Great, in dying well, wip'd away the ill
opinion that till then every one had conceived of him. Epaminondas
being ask'd which of the three he had in the greatest esteem,
Chabrias, Iphicrates, or himself; "You must first see us die (said he)
before that question can be resolv'd": and, in truth, he would
infinitely wrong that great man, who would weigh him without the honor
and grandeur of his end.
God Almightly had order'd all things as it has best pleased Him; but I
have in my time seen three of the most execrable persons that ever I
knew in all manners of abominable living, and the most infamous to
boot, who all dy'd a very regular death, and in all circumstances
compos'd even to perfection. There are brave, and fortunate deaths. I
have seen death cut the thread of the progress of a prodigious
advancement, and in the height and flower of its increase of a certain
person, with so glorious an end, that in my opinion his ambitious and
generous designs had nothing in them so high and great as their
interruption; and he arrived without completing his course, at the
place to which his ambition pretended with greater glory than he could
himself either hope or desire, and anticipated by his fall the name
and power to which he aspir'd, by perfecting his career. In the
judgment I make of another man's life, I always observe how he carried
himself at his death; and the principal concern I have for my own is
that I may die handsomely; that is, patiently and without noise.
RENÉ DESCARTES
Born in Touraine in 1596, died in Stockholm in 1650; founder
of modern general philosophy; educated at a Jesuit college
in France; lived in Paris in 1613-18; at the siege of La
Rochelle in 1628; in retirement in Holland in 1629-49;
defending his philosophical ideas; his first famous work,
"Discours de la Methode," published in Leyden in 1637;
published "Meditations of Philosophy" in 1641; a treatise on
the passion of love in 1649; other works published after his
death; famous as a mathematician as well as philosopher, his
geometry being still standard in Europe.
OF MATERIAL THINGS AND OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD[25]
Several questions remain for consideration respecting the attributes
of God and my own nature or mind. I will, however, on some other
occasion perhaps resume the investigation of these. Meanwhile, as I
have discovered what must be done and what avoided to arrive at the
knowledge of truth, what I have chiefly to do is to essay to emerge
from the state of doubt in which I have for some time been, and to
discover whether anything can be known with certainty regarding
material objects. But before considering whether such objects as I
conceive exist without me, I must examine their ideas in so far as
these are to be found in my consciousness, and discover which of them
are distinct and which confused.
[Footnote 25: From the "Meditations," translated by John Veitch.]
In the first place, I distinctly imagine that quantity which the
philosophers commonly call continuous, or the extension in length,
breadth, and depth that is in this quantity, or rather in the object
to which it is attributed. Further, I can enumerate in it many diverse
parts, and attribute to each of these all sorts of sizes, figures,
situations, and local motions; and, in fine, I can assign to each of
these motions all degrees of duration. And I not only distinctly know
these things when I thus consider them in general; but besides, by a
little attention, I discover innumerable particulars respecting
figures, numbers, motion, and the like, which are so evidently true,
and so accordant with my nature, that when I now discover them I do
not so much appear to learn anything new as to call to remembrance
what I before knew, or for the first time to remark what was before in
my mind, but to which I had not hitherto directed my attention. And
what I here find of most importance is, that I discover in my mind
innumerable ideas of certain objects, which can not be esteemed pure
negations, altho perhaps they possess no reality beyond my thought,
and which are not framed by me, tho it may be in my power to think, or
not to think them, but possess true and immutable natures of their
own.
As, for example, when I imagine a triangle, altho there is not perhaps
and never was in any place in the universe apart from my thought one
such figure, it remains true, nevertheless, that this figure possesses
a certain determinate nature, form, or essence, which is immutable and
eternal, and not framed by me, nor in any degree dependent on my
thought; as appears from the circumstance, that diverse properties of
the triangle may be demonstrated, viz., that its three angles are
equal to two right, that its greatest side is subtended by its
greatest angle, and the like, which, whether I will or not, I now
clearly discern to belong to it, altho before I did not at all think
of them, when, for the first time, I imagined a triangle, and which
accordingly can not be said to have been invented by me.
Nor is it a valid objection to allege that perhaps this idea of a
triangle came into my mind by the medium of the senses, through my
having seen bodies of a triangular figure; for I am able to form in
thought an innumerable variety of figures with regard to which it can
not be supposed that they were ever objects of sense, and I can
nevertheless demonstrate diverse properties of their nature no less
than of the triangle, all of which are assuredly true since I clearly
conceive them: and they are therefore something, and not mere
negations; for it is highly evident that all that is true is something
(truth being identical with existence); and I have already fully shown
the truth of the principle, that whatever is clearly and distinctly
known is true. And altho this had not been demonstrated, yet the
nature of my mind is such as to compel me to assent to what I clearly
conceive while I so conceive it; and I recollect that even when I
still strongly adhered to the objects of sense, I reckoned among the
number of the most certain truths those I clearly conceived relating
to figures, numbers, and other matters that pertain to arithmetic and
geometry, and in general to the pure mathematics.
But now if because I can draw from my thought the idea of an object it
follows that all I clearly and distinctly apprehend to pertain to this
object does in truth belong to it, may I not from this derive an
argument for the existence of God? It is certain that I no less find
the idea of a God in my consciousness, that is, the idea of a being
supremely perfect, than that of any figure or number whatever: and I
know with not less clearness and distinctness that an (actual and
eternal) existence pertains to his nature than that all which is
demonstrable of any figure or number really belongs to the nature of
that figure or number; and, therefore, altho all the conclusions of
the preceding "Meditations" were false, the existence of God would
pass with me for a truth at least as certain as I ever judged any
truth of mathematics to be, altho indeed such a doctrine may at first
sight appear to contain more sophistry than truth. For, as I have been
accustomed in every other matter to distinguish between existence and
essence, I easily believe that the existence can be separated from the
essence of God, and that thus God may be conceived as not actually
existing. But, nevertheless, when I think of it more attentively, it
appears that the existence can no more be separated from the essence
of God than the idea of a mountain from that of a valley, or the
equality of its three angles to two right angles, from the essence of
a (rectilineal) triangle; so that it is not less impossible to
conceive a God, that is, a being supremely perfect, to whom existence
is wanting, or who is devoid of a certain perfection, than to conceive
a mountain without a valley.
But tho, in truth, I can not conceive a God unless as existing, any
more than I can a mountain without a valley, yet, just as it does not
follow that there is any mountain in the world merely because I
conceive a mountain with a valley, so likewise, tho I conceive God as
existing, it does not seem to follow on that account that God exists;
for my thought imposes no necessity on things; and as I may imagine a
winged horse, tho there be none such, so I could perhaps attribute
existence to God, tho no God existed. But the cases are not analogous,
and a fallacy lurks under the semblance of this objection: for because
I can not conceive a mountain without a valley, it does not follow
that there is any mountain or valley in existence, but simply that the
mountain or valley, whether they do or do not exist, are inseparable
from each other; whereas, on the other hand, because I can not
conceive God unless as existing, it follows that existence is
inseparable from Him, and therefore that He really exists: not that
this is brought about by my thought, or that it imposes any necessity
on things, but, on the contrary, the necessity which lies in the thing
itself, that is, the necessity of the existence of God, determines me
to think in this way: for it is not in my power to conceive a God
without existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid
of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a horse with or
without wings.
DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Born in 1613, died in 1680; a duke and prince of distinction
in his own day, but now known through his "Maxims,"
"Memoirs" and "Letters"; his "Maxims" first issued
anonymously in 1665; a sixth edition, published in 1693,
contains fifty additional maxims; his Letters not published
until 1818.
A SELECTION FROM THE "MAXIMS"[26]
The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to
avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the
very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to
guard themselves against the degradation of poverty; it was a back way
by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by
riches.
[Footnote 26: From the translation by J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain
Friswell. At least eight English translations of La Rochefoucauld had
appeared before 1870--including the years 1689, 1694, 1706, 1749, 1799
and 1815. Besides these, Swedish, Spanish and Italian translations
have been made. The first English version (1689), appears to have been
made by Mrs. Aphra Behn, the barber's daughter, upon whom has been
conferred the distinction of being "the first female writer who lived
by her pen in England." One of the later translations is by A. S.
Bolton. The translation by Messrs. Bund and Friswell includes fifty
additional maxims attributed to La Rochefoucauld.]
Perfect valor is to do without witnesses what one would do before all
the world.
As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words,
so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
Who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks.
There is no disguise which can long hide love where it exists, nor
feign it where it does not.
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater
benefits.
Almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many people
show gratitude for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not show
ingratitude for great favors.
Nothing is rarer than true good nature; those who think they have it
are generally only pliant or weak.
There is no less eloquence in the voice, in the eyes and in the air of
a speaker than in his choice of words.
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that
could be said.
There are people whose faults become them, others whose very virtues
disgrace them.
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than
we do in our opinion of ourselves.
Most people judge men only by success or by fortune.
Love of glory, fear of shame, greed of fortune, the desire to make
life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others are
often causes of that bravery so vaunted among men.
The fame of great men ought always to be estimated by the means used
to acquire it.
If we never flattered ourselves the flattery of others would not hurt
us.
When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of
misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition,
and not by their mind; so that _plus_ a great vanity, heroes are made
like other men.
We may forgive those who bore us, we can not forgive those whom we
bore.
To praise good actions heartily is in some measure to take part in
them.
There is a kind of greatness which does not depend upon fortune: it is
a certain manner that distinguishes us, and which seems to destine us
for great things: it is the value we insensibly set upon ourselves; it
is by this quality that we gain the deference of other men, and it is
this which commonly raises us more above them than birth, rank, or
even merit itself.
The cause why the majority of women are so little given to friendship
is, that it is insipid after having felt love.
Women can not be completely severe unless they hate.
The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy
we bear to those who are established.
Little minds are too much wounded by little things; great minds see
all and are not even hurt.