{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3596/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3596","id":"gutenberg_3596","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3596","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","French essays -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE\n\nTranslated by Charles Cotton\n\nEdited by William Carew Hazilitt\n\n1877\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOLUME 16.\n\nVI.       Of Coaches.\nVII.      Of the Inconvenience of Greatness.\nVIII.     Of the Art of Conference.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nOF COACHES\n\nIt is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they write of causes,\nnot only make use of those they think to be the true causes, but also of\nthose they believe not to be so, provided they have in them some beauty\nand invention: they speak true and usefully enough, if it be ingeniously.\nWe cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and therefore crowd a\ngreat many together, to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them:\n\n               \"Namque unam dicere causam\n          Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tamen sit.\"\n\n     [Lucretius, vi. 704.--The sense is in the preceding passage.]\n\nDo you ask me, whence comes the custom of blessing those who sneeze?\nWe break wind three several ways; that which sallies from below is too\nfilthy; that which breaks out from the mouth carries with it some\nreproach of gluttony; the third is sneezing, which, because it proceeds\nfrom the head and is without offence, we give it this civil reception: do\nnot laugh at this distinction; they say 'tis Aristotle's.\n\nI think I have seen in Plutarch' (who of all the authors I know, is he\nwho has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with knowledge), his\ngiving as a reason for the, rising of the stomach in those who are at\nsea, that it is occasioned by fear; having first found out some reason by\nwhich he proves that fear may produce such an effect.  I, who am very\nsubject to it, know well that this cause concerns not me; and I know it,\nnot by argument, but by necessary experience.  Without instancing what\nhas been told me, that the same thing often happens in beasts, especially\nhogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger; and what an acquaintance\nof mine told me of himself, that though very subject to it, the\ndisposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him, being very\nafraid in a violent storm, as it happened to that ancient:\n\n          \"Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;\"\n\n          [\"I was too ill to think of danger.\" (Or the reverse:)\n          \"I was too frightened to be ill.\"--Seneca, Ep., 53. 2]\n\nI was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and I\nhave had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death be\none), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment.  Fear springs sometimes\nas much from want of judgment as from want of courage.  All the dangers I\nhave been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, sound, and\nentire sight; and, indeed, a man must have courage to fear.  It formerly\nserved me better than other help, so to order and regulate my retreat,\nthat it was, if not without fear, nevertheless without affright and\nastonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupefied.\nGreat souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, not only\nsteady and temperate, but moreover lofty.  Let us make a relation of that\nwhich Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in arms: \"I found him,\"\nsays he, \"after the rout of our army, him and Lachez, last among those\nwho fled, and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I was\nmounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as he had fought.  I took\nnotice, in the first place, how much judgment and resolution he showed,\nin comparison of Lachez, and then the bravery of his march, nothing\ndifferent from his ordinary gait; his sight firm and regular, considering\nand judging what passed about him, looking one while upon those, and then\nupon others, friends and enemies, after such a manner as encouraged\nthose, and signified to the others that he would sell his life dear to\nany one who should attempt to take it from him, and so they came off; for\npeople are not willing to attack such kind of men, but pursue those they\nsee are in a fright.\"  That is the testimony of this great captain, which\nteaches us, what we every day experience, that nothing so much throws us\ninto dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness of getting ourselves clear of\nthem:\n\n     \"Quo timoris minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est.\"\n\n     [\"When there is least fear, there is for the most part least\n     danger.\"--Livy, xxii. 5.]\n\nOur people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death, when\nthey would express that he thinks of it and foresees it: foresight is\nequally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or ill.  To consider\nand judge of danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being astounded.\nI do not find myself strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity\nof this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever: if I\nwas once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never rise again very\nsound.  Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never\nset her upright again: she retastes and researches herself too\nprofoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never let the\nwound she had received heal and cicatrise.  It has been well for me that\nno sickness has yet discomposed her: at every charge made upon me, I\npreserve my utmost opposition and defence; by which means the first that\nshould rout me would keep me from ever rallying again.  I have no\nafter-game to play: on which side soever the inundation breaks my banks,\nI lie open, and am drowned without remedy.  Epicurus says, that a wise\nman can never become a fool; I have an opinion reverse to this sentence,\nwhich is, that he who has once been a very fool, will never after be very\nwise. God grants me cold according to my cloth, and passions\nproportionable to the means I have to withstand them: nature having laid\nme open on the one side, has covered me on the other; having disarmed me\nof strength, she has armed me with insensibility and an apprehension that\nis regular, or, if you will, dull.\n\nI cannot now long endure (and when I was young could much less) either\ncoach, litter, or boat, and hate all other riding but on horseback, both\nin town and country.  But I can bear a litter worse than a coach; and, by\nthe same reason, a rough agitation upon the water, whence fear is\nproduced, better than the motions of a calm.  At the little jerks of\noars, stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I know not how, both my\nhead and my stomach disordered; neither-can I endure to sit upon a\ntottering chair.  When the sail or the current carries us equally, or\nthat we are towed, the equal agitation does not disturb me at all; 'tis\nan interrupted motion that offends me, and most of all when most slow: I\ncannot otherwise express it.  The physicians have ordered me to squeeze\nand gird myself about the bottom of the belly with a napkin to remedy\nthis evil; which however I have not tried, being accustomed to wrestle\nwith my own defects, and overcome them myself.\n\nWould my memory serve me, I should not think my time ill spent in setting\ndown here the infinite variety that history presents us of the use of\nchariots in the service of war: various, according to the nations and\naccording to the age; in my opinion, of great necessity and effect; so\nthat it is a wonder that we have lost all knowledge of them.  I will only\nsay this, that very lately, in our fathers' time, the Hungarians made\nvery advantageous use of them against the Turks; having in every one of\nthem a targetter and a musketeer, and a number of harquebuses piled ready\nand loaded, and all covered with a pavesade like a galliot--[Canvas\nspread along the side of a ship of war, in action to screen the movements\nof those on board.]--They formed the front of their battle with three\nthousand such coaches, and after the cannon had played, made them all\npour in their shot upon the enemy, who had to swallow that volley before\nthey tasted of the rest, which was no little advance; and that done,\nthese chariots charged into their squadrons to break them and open a way\nfor the rest; besides the use they might make of them to flank the\nsoldiers in a place of danger when marching to the field, or to cover a\npost, and fortify it in haste.  In my time, a gentleman on one of our\nfrontiers, unwieldy of body, and finding no horse able to carry his\nweight, having a quarrel, rode through the country in a chariot of this\nfashion, and found great convenience in it.  But let us leave these\nchariots of war.\n\nAs if their effeminacy--[Which Cotton translates: \"as if the\ninsignificancy of coaches.\" ]--had not been sufficiently known by better\nproofs, the last kings of our first race travelled in a chariot drawn by\nfour oxen.  Marc Antony was the first at Rome who caused himself to be\ndrawn in a coach by lions, and a singing wench with him.\n\n     [Cytheris, the Roman courtezan.--Plutarch's Life of Antony, c. 3.\n     This, was the same person who is introduced by Gallus under the name\n     of Lycoris.  Gallus doubtless knew her personally.]\n\nHeliogabalus did since as much, calling himself Cybele, the mother of the\ngods; and also drawn by tigers, taking upon him the person of the god\nBacchus; he also sometimes harnessed two stags to his coach, another time\nfour dogs, and another four naked wenches, causing himself to be drawn by\nthem in pomp, stark naked too.  The Emperor Firmus caused his chariot to\nbe drawn by ostriches of a prodigious size, so that it seemed rather to\nfly than roll.\n\nThe strangeness of these inventions puts this other fancy in my head:\nthat it is a kind of pusillanimity in monarchs, and a testimony that they\ndo not sufficiently understand themselves what they are, when they study\nto make themselves honoured and to appear great by excessive expense: it\nwere indeed excusable in a foreign country, but amongst their own\nsubjects, where they are in sovereign command, and may do what they\nplease, it derogates from their dignity the most supreme degree of honour\nto which they can arrive: just as, methinks, it is superfluous in a\nprivate gentleman to go finely dressed at home; his house, his\nattendants, and his kitchen sufficiently answer for him.  The advice that\nIsocrates gives his king seems to be grounded upon reason: that he should\nbe splendid in plate and furniture; forasmuch as it is an expense of\nduration that devolves on his successors; and that he should avoid all\nmagnificences that will in a short time be forgotten.  I loved to go fine\nwhen I was a younger brother, for want of other ornament; and it became\nme well: there are some upon whom their rich clothes weep: We have\nstrange stories of the frugality of our kings about their own persons and\nin their gifts: kings who were great in reputation, valour, and fortune.\nDemosthenes vehemently opposes the law of his city that assigned the\npublic money for the pomp of their public plays and festivals: he would\nthat their greatness should be seen in numbers of ships well equipped,\nand good armies well provided for; and there is good reason to condemn\nTheophrastus, who, in his Book on Riches, establishes a contrary opinion,\nand maintains that sort of expense to be the true fruit of abundance.\nThey are delights, says Aristotle, that a only please the baser sort of\nthe people, and that vanish from the memory as soon as the people are\nsated with them, and for which no serious and judicious man can have any\nesteem.  This money would, in my opinion, be much more royally, as more\nprofitably, justly, and durably, laid out in ports, havens, walls, and\nfortifications; in sumptuous buildings, churches, hospitals, colleges,\nthe reforming of streets and highways: wherein Pope Gregory XIII.  will\nleave a laudable memory to future times: and wherein our Queen Catherine\nwould to long posterity manifest her natural liberality and munificence,\ndid her means supply her affection.  Fortune has done me a great despite\nin interrupting the noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great city,\nand depriving me of the hope of seeing it finished before I die.\n\nMoreover, it seems to subjects, who are spectators of these triumphs,\nthat their own riches are exposed before them, and that they are\nentertained at their own expense: for the people are apt to presume of\nkings, as we do of our servants, that they are to take care to provide us\nall things necessary in abundance, but not touch it themselves; and\ntherefore the Emperor Galba, being pleased with a musician who played to\nhim at supper, called for his money-box, and gave him a handful of crowns\nthat he took out of it, with these words: \"This is not the public money,\nbut my own.\"  Yet it so falls out that the people, for the most part,\nhave reason on their side, and that the princes feed their eyes with what\nthey have need of to fill their bellies.\n\nLiberality itself is not in its true lustre in a sovereign hand: private\nmen have therein the most right; for, to take it exactly, a king has\nnothing properly his own; he owes himself to others: authority is not\ngiven in favour of the magistrate, but of the people; a superior is never\nmade so for his own profit, but for the profit of the inferior, and a\nphysician for the sick person, and not for himself: all magistracy, as\nwell as all art, has its end out of itself wherefore the tutors of young\nprinces, who make it their business to imprint in them this virtue of\nliberality, and preach to them to deny nothing and to think nothing so\nwell spent as what they give (a doctrine that I have known in great\ncredit in my time), either have more particular regard to their own\nprofit than to that of their master, or ill understand to whom they\nspeak.  It is too easy a thing to inculcate liberality on him who has as\nmuch as he will to practise it with at the expense of others; and, the\nestimate not being proportioned to the measure of the gift but to the\nmeasure of the means of him who gives it, it comes to nothing in so\nmighty hands; they find themselves prodigal before they can be reputed\nliberal.  And it is but a little recommendation, in comparison with other\nroyal virtues: and the only one, as the tyrant Dionysius said, that suits\nwell with tyranny itself.  I should rather teach him this verse of the\nancient labourer:\n\n     [\"That whoever will have a good crop must sow with his hand, and not\n     pour out of the sack.\"--Plutarch, Apothegms,  Whether the Ancients\n     were more excellent in Arms than in Learning.]\n\nhe must scatter it abroad, and not lay it on a heap in one place: and\nthat, seeing he is to give, or, to say better, to pay and restore to so\nmany people according as they have deserved, he ought to be a loyal and\ndiscreet disposer.  If the liberality of a prince be without measure or\ndiscretion, I had rather he were covetous.\n\nRoyal virtue seems most to consist in justice; and of all the parts of\njustice that best denotes a king which accompanies liberality, for this\nthey have particularly reserved to be performed by themselves, whereas\nall other sorts of justice they remit to the administration of others.\nAn immoderate bounty is a very weak means to acquire for them good will;\nit checks more people than it allures:\n\n          \"Quo in plures usus sis, minus in multos uti possis....\n          Quid autem est stultius, quam, quod libenter facias,\n          curare ut id diutius facere non possis;\"\n\n     [\"By how much more you use it to many, by so much less will you be\n     in a capacity to use it to many more.  And what greater folly can\n     there be than to order it so that what you would willingly do, you\n     cannot do longer.\"--Cicero, De Offic., ii. 15.]\n\nand if it be conferred without due respect of merit, it puts him out of\ncountenance who receives it, and is received ungraciously.  Tyrants have\nbeen sacrificed to the hatred of the people by the hands of those very\nmen they have unjustly advanced; such kind of men as buffoons, panders,\nfiddlers, and such ragamuffins, thinking to assure to themselves the\npossession of benefits unduly received, if they manifest to have him in\nhatred and disdain of whom they hold them, and in this associate\nthemselves to the common judgment and opinion.\n\nThe subjects of a prince excessive in gifts grow excessive in asking,\nand regulate their demands, not by reason, but by example.  We have,\nseriously, very often reason to blush at our own impudence: we are\nover-paid, according to justice, when the recompense equals our service;\nfor do we owe nothing of natural obligation to our princes?  If he bear\nour charges, he does too much; 'tis enough that he contribute to them:\nthe overplus is called benefit, which cannot be exacted: for the very\nname Liberality sounds of Liberty.\n\nIn our fashion it is never done; we never reckon what we have received;\nwe are only for the future liberality; wherefore, the more a prince\nexhausts himself in giving, the poorer he grows in friends.  How should\nhe satisfy immoderate desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled?\nHe who has his thoughts upon taking, never thinks of what he has taken;\ncovetousness has nothing so properly and so much its own as ingratitude.\n\nThe example of Cyrus will not do amiss in this place, to serve the kings\nof these times for a touchstone to know whether their gifts are well or\nill bestowed, and to see how much better that emperor conferred them than\nthey do, by which means they are reduced to borrow of unknown subjects,\nand rather of them whom they have wronged than of them on whom they have\nconferred their benefits, and so receive aids wherein there is nothing of\ngratuitous but the name.  Croesus reproached him with his bounty, and\ncast up to how much his treasure would amount if he had been a little\ncloser-handed.  He had a mind to justify his liberality, and therefore\nsent despatches into all parts to the grandees of his dominions whom he\nhad particularly advanced, entreating every one of them to supply him\nwith as much money as they could, for a pressing occasion, and to send\nhim particulars of what each could advance.  When all these answers were\nbrought to him, every one of his friends, not thinking it enough barely\nto offer him so much as he had received from his bounty, and adding to it\na great deal of his own, it appeared that the sum amounted to a great\ndeal more than Croesus' reckoning.  Whereupon Cyrus: \"I am not,\" said he,\n\"less in love with riches than other princes, but rather a better\nhusband; you see with how small a venture I have acquired the inestimable\ntreasure of so many friends, and how much more faithful treasurers they\nare to me than mercenary men without obligation, without affection; and\nmy money better laid up than in chests, bringing upon me the hatred,\nenvy, and contempt of other princes.\"\n\nThe emperors excused the superfluity of their plays and public spectacles\nby reason that their authority in some sort (at least in outward\nappearance) depended upon the will of the people of Rome, who, time out\nof mind, had been accustomed to be entertained and caressed with such\nshows and excesses.  But they were private citizens, who had nourished\nthis custom to gratify their fellow-citizens and companions (and chiefly\nout of their own purses) by such profusion and magnificence it had quite\nanother taste when the masters came to imitate it:\n\n          \"Pecuniarum translatio a justis dominis ad alienos\n          non debet liberalis videri.\"\n\n     [\"The transferring of money from the right owners to strangers\n     ought not to have the title of liberality.\"\n     --Cicero, De Offic., i. 14.]\n\nPhilip, seeing that his son went about by presents to gain the affection\nof the Macedonians, reprimanded him in a letter after this manner: \"What!\nhast thou a mind that thy subjects shall look upon thee as their\ncash-keeper and not as their king?  Wilt thou tamper with them to win\ntheir affections?  Do it, then, by the benefits of thy virtue, and not by\nthose of thy chest.\"  And yet it was, doubtless, a fine thing to bring\nand plant within the amphitheatre a great number of vast trees, with all\ntheir branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest,\ndisposed in excellent order; and, the first day, to throw into it a\nthousand ostriches and a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand\nfallow-deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people: the next day, to\ncause a hundred great lions, a hundred leopards, and three hundred bears\nto be killed in his presence; and for the third day, to make three\nhundred pair of gladiators fight it out to the last, as the Emperor\nProbus did.  It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all\nfaced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues,\nand within glittering with rare enrichments:\n\n               \"Baltheus en! gemmis, en illita porticus auro:\"\n\n     [\"A belt glittering with jewels, and a portico overlaid with gold.\"\n     --Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 47.  A baltheus was a shoulder-belt or\n     baldric.]\n\nall the sides of this vast space filled and environed, from the bottom to\nthe top, with three or four score rows of seats, all of marble also, and\ncovered with cushions:\n\n                         \"Exeat, inquit,\n                    Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri,\n                    Cujus res legi non sufficit;\"\n\n     [\"Let him go out, he said, if he has any sense of shame, and rise\n     from the equestrian cushion, whose estate does not satisfy the law.\"\n     --Juvenal, iii. 153.  The Equites were required to possess a fortune\n     of 400 sestertia, and they sat on the first fourteen rows behind the\n     orchestra.]\n\nwhere a hundred thousand men might sit at their ease: and, the place\nbelow, where the games were played, to make it, by art, first open and\ncleave in chasms, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed\nfor the spectacle; and then, secondly, to be overflowed by a deep sea,\nfull of sea monsters, and laden with ships of war, to represent a naval\nbattle; and, thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combat of the\ngladiators; and, for the fourth scene, to have it strown with vermilion\ngrain and storax,--[A resinous gum.]--instead of sand, there to make a\nsolemn feast for all that infinite number of people: the last act of one\nonly day:\n\n              \"Quoties nos descendentis arenae\n               Vidimus in partes, ruptaque voragine terrae\n               Emersisse feras, et eisdem saepe latebris\n               Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro!....\n               Nec solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra\n               Contigit; aequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis\n               Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum,\n               Sen deforme pecus, quod in illo nascitur amni....\"\n\n     [\"How often have we seen the stage of the theatre descend and part\n     asunder, and from a chasm in the earth wild beasts emerge, and then\n     presently give birth to a grove of gilded trees, that put forth\n     blossoms of enamelled flowers.  Nor yet of sylvan marvels alone had\n     we sight: I saw sea-calves fight with bears, and a deformed sort of\n     cattle, we might call sea-horses.\"--Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 64.]\n\nSometimes they made a high mountain advance itself, covered with\nfruit-trees and other leafy trees, sending down rivulets of water from\nthe top, as from the mouth of a fountain: otherwhiles, a great ship was\nseen to come rolling in, which opened and divided of itself, and after\nhaving disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight,\nclosed again, and vanished without help.  At other times, from the floor\nof this place, they made spouts of perfumed water dart their streams\nupward, and so high as to sprinkle all that infinite multitude.  To\ndefend themselves from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast\nplace one while covered over with purple curtains of needlework, and\nby-and-by with silk of one or another colour, which they drew off or\non in a moment, as they had a mind:\n\n              \"Quamvis non modico caleant spectacula sole,\n               Vela reducuntur, cum venit Hermogenes.\"\n\n     [\"The curtains, though the sun should scorch the spectators, are\n     drawn in, when Hermogenes appears.\"-Martial, xii.  29, 15.  M.\n     Tigellius Hermogenes, whom Horace and others have satirised.  One\n     editor calls him \"a noted thief,\" another: \"He was a literary\n     amateur of no ability, who expressed his critical opinions with too\n     great a freedom to please the poets of his day.\"  D.W.]\n\nThe network also that was set before the people to defend them from the\nviolence of these turned-out beasts was woven of gold:\n\n                   \"Auro quoque torts refulgent\n                    Retia.\"\n\n               [\"The woven nets are refulgent with gold.\"\n               --Calpurnius, ubi supra.]\n\nIf there be anything excusable in such excesses as these, it is where the\nnovelty and invention create more wonder than the expense; even in these\nvanities we discover how fertile those ages were in other kind of wits\nthan these of ours.  It is with this sort of fertility, as with all other\nproducts of nature: not that she there and then employed her utmost\nforce: we do not go; we rather run up and down, and whirl this way and\nthat; we turn back the way we came.  I am afraid our knowledge is weak in\nall senses; we neither see far forward nor far backward; our\nunderstanding comprehends little, and lives but a little while; 'tis\nshort both in extent of time and extent of matter:\n\n                   \"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona\n                    Mufti, sed omnes illacrymabiles\n                    Urgentur, ignotique longs\n                    Nocte.\"\n\n     [ Many brave men lived before Agamemnon, but all are pressed by the\n     long night unmourned and unknown.\"--Horace, Od., iv. 9, 25.]\n\n              \"Et supra bellum Thebanum et funera Trojae\n               Non alias alii quoque res cecinere poetae?\"\n\n     [\"Why before the Theban war and the destruction of Troy, have not\n     other poets sung other events?\"--Lucretius, v. 327.  Montaigne here\n     diverts himself m giving Lucretius' words a construction directly\n     contrary to what they bear in the poem.  Lucretius puts the\n     question, Why if the earth had existed from all eternity, there had\n     not been poets, before the Theban war, to sing men's exploits.\n     --Coste.]\n\nAnd the narrative of Solon, of what he had learned from the Egyptian\npriests, touching the long life of their state, and their manner of\nlearning and preserving foreign histories, is not, methinks, a testimony\nto be refused in this consideration:\n\n     \"Si interminatam in omnes partes magnitudinem regionum videremus et\n     temporum, in quam se injiciens animus et intendens, ita late\n     longeque peregrinatur, ut nullam oram ultimi videat, in qua possit\n     insistere: in haec immensitate .  .  .  infinita vis innumerabilium\n     appareret fomorum.\"\n\n     [\"Could we see on all parts the unlimited magnitude of regions and\n     of times, upon which the mind being intent, could wander so far and\n     wide, that no limit is to be seen, in which it can bound its eye, we\n     should, in that infinite immensity, discover an infinite force of\n     innumerable atoms.\"  Here also Montaigne puts a sense quite\n     different from what the words bear in the original; but the\n     application he makes of them is so happy that one would declare they\n     were actually put together only to express his own sentiments.  \"Et\n     temporum\" is an addition by Montaigne.--Coste.]\n\nThough all that has arrived, by report, of our knowledge of times past\nshould be true, and known by some one person, it would be less than\nnothing in comparison of what is unknown.  And of this same image of the\nworld, which glides away whilst we live upon it, how wretched and limited\nis the knowledge of the most curious; not only of particular events,\nwhich fortune often renders exemplary and of great concern, but of the\nstate of great governments and nations, a hundred more escape us than\never come to our knowledge.  We make a mighty business of the invention\nof artillery and printing, which other men at the other end of the world,\nin China, had a thousand years ago.  Did we but see as much of the world\nas we do not see, we should perceive, we may well believe, a perpetual\nmultiplication and vicissitude of forms.  There is nothing single and\nrare in respect of nature, but in respect of our knowledge, which is a\nwretched foundation whereon to ground our rules, and that represents to\nus a very false image of things.  As we nowadays vainly conclude the\ndeclension and decrepitude of the world, by the arguments we extract from\nour own weakness and decay:\n\n          \"Jamque adeo est affecta aetas effoet aque tellus;\"\n\n          [\"Our age is feeble, and the earth less fertile.\"\n          --Lucretius, ii. 1151.]\n\nso did he vainly conclude as to its birth and youth, by the vigour he\nobserved in the wits of his time, abounding in novelties and the\ninvention of divers arts:\n\n         \"Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa, recensque\n          Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia coepit\n          Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur,\n          Nunc etiam augescunt; nunc addita navigiis sunt\n          Multa.\"\n\n     [\"But, as I am of opinion, the whole of the world is of recent\n     origin, nor had its commencement in remote times; wherefore it is\n     that some arts are still being refined, and some just on the\n     increase; at present many additions are being made to shipping.\"\n     --Lucretius, v. 331.]\n\nOur world has lately discovered another (and who will assure us that it\nis the last of its brothers, since the Daemons, the Sybils, and we\nourselves have been ignorant of this till now?), as large, well-peopled,\nand fruitful as this whereon we live and yet so raw and childish, that we\nare still teaching it it's a B C: 'tis not above fifty years since it\nknew neither letters, weights, measures, vestments, corn, nor vines: it\nwas then quite naked in the mother's lap, and only lived upon what she\ngave it.  If we rightly conclude of our end, and this poet of the\nyouthfulness of that age of his, that other world will only enter into\nthe light when this of ours shall make its exit; the universe will fall\ninto paralysis; one member will be useless, the other in vigour.  I am\nvery much afraid that we have greatly precipitated its declension and\nruin by our contagion; and that we have sold it opinions and our arts at\na very dear rate.  It was an infant world, and yet we have not whipped\nand subjected it to our discipline by the advantage of our natural worth\nand force, neither have we won it by our justice and goodness, nor\nsubdued it by our magnanimity.  Most of their answers, and the\nnegotiations we have had with them, witness that they were nothing behind\nus in pertinency and clearness of natural understanding.  The astonishing\nmagnificence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, amongst many other\nthings, the garden of the king, where all the trees, fruits, and plants,\naccording to the order and stature they have in a garden, were\nexcellently formed in gold; as, in his cabinet, were all the animals bred\nupon his territory and in its seas; and the beauty of their manufactures,\nin jewels, feathers, cotton, and painting, gave ample proof that they\nwere as little inferior to us in industry.  But as to what concerns\ndevotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liberality, loyalty, and\nplain dealing, it was of use to us that we had not so much as they; for\nthey have lost, sold, and betrayed themselves by this advantage over us.\n\nAs to boldness and courage, stability, constancy against pain, hunger,\nand death, I should not fear to oppose the examples I find amongst them\nto the most famous examples of elder times that we find in our records on\nthis side of the world.  Far as to those who subdued them, take but away\nthe tricks and artifices they practised to gull them, and the just\nastonishment it was to those nations to see so sudden and unexpected an\narrival of men with beards, differing in language, religion, shape, and\ncountenance, from so remote a part of the world, and where they had never\nheard there was any habitation, mounted upon great unknown monsters,\nagainst those who had not only never seen a horse, but had never seen any\nother beast trained up to carry a man or any other loading; shelled in a\nhard and shining skin, with a cutting and glittering weapon in his hand,\nagainst them, who, out of wonder at the brightness of a looking glass or\na knife, would exchange great treasures of gold and pearl; and who had\nneither knowledge, nor matter with which, at leisure, they could\npenetrate our steel: to which may be added the lightning and thunder of\nour cannon and harquebuses, enough to frighten Caesar himself, if\nsurprised, with so little experience, against people naked, except where\nthe invention of a little quilted cotton was in use, without other arms,\nat the most, than bows, stones, staves, and bucklers of wood; people\nsurprised under colour of friendship and good faith, by the curiosity of\nseeing strange and unknown things; take but away, I say, this disparity\nfrom the conquerors, and you take away all the occasion of so many\nvictories.  When I look upon that in vincible ardour wherewith so many\nthousands of men, women, and children so often presented and threw\nthemselves into inevitable dangers for the defence of their gods and\nliberties; that generous obstinacy to suffer all extremities and\ndifficulties, and death itself, rather than submit to the dominion of\nthose by whom they had been so shamefully abused; and some of them\nchoosing to die of hunger and fasting, being prisoners, rather than to\naccept of nourishment from the hands of their so basely victorious\nenemies: I see, that whoever would have attacked them upon equal terms of\narms, experience, and number, would have had a hard, and, peradventure,\na harder game to play than in any other war we have seen.\n\nWhy did not so noble a conquest fall under Alexander, or the ancient\nGreeks and Romans; and so great a revolution and mutation of so many\nempires and nations, fall into hands that would have gently levelled,\nrooted up, and made plain and smooth whatever was rough and savage\namongst them, and that would have cherished and propagated the good seeds\nthat nature had there produced; mixing not only with the culture of land\nand the ornament of cities, the arts of this part of the world, in what\nwas necessary, but also the Greek and Roman virtues, with those that were\noriginal of the country?  What a reparation had it been to them, and what\na general good to the whole world, had our first examples and deportments\nin those parts allured those people to the admiration and imitation of\nvirtue, and had begotten betwixt them and us a fraternal society and\nintelligence?  How easy had it been to have made advantage of souls so\ninnocent, and so eager to learn, leaving, for the most part, naturally so\ngood inclinations before?  Whereas, on the contrary, we have taken\nadvantage of their ignorance and inexperience, with greater ease to\nincline them to treachery, luxury, avarice, and towards all sorts of\ninhumanity and cruelty, by the pattern and example of our manners.  Who\never enhanced the price of merchandise at such a rate?  So many cities\nlevelled with the ground, so many nations exterminated, so many millions\nof people fallen by the edge of the sword, and the richest and most\nbeautiful part of the world turned upside down, for the traffic of pearl\nand pepper?  Mechanic victories!  Never did ambition, never did public\nanimosities, engage men against one another in such miserable\nhostilities, in such miserable calamities.\n\nCertain Spaniards, coasting the sea in quest of their mines, landed in a\nfruitful and pleasant and very well peopled country, and there made to\nthe inhabitants their accustomed professions: \"that they were peaceable\nmen, who were come from a very remote country, and sent on the behalf of\nthe King of Castile, the greatest prince of the habitable world, to whom\nthe Pope, God's vicegerent upon earth, had given the principality of all\nthe Indies; that if they would become tributaries to him, they should be\nvery gently and courteously used\"; at the same time requiring of them\nvictuals for their nourishment, and gold whereof to make some pretended\nmedicine; setting forth, moreover, the belief in one only God, and the\ntruth of our religion, which they advised them to embrace, whereunto they\nalso added some threats.  To which they received this answer: \"That as to\ntheir being peaceable, they did not seem to be such, if they were so.\nAs to their king, since he was fain to beg, he must be necessitous and\npoor; and he who had made him this gift, must be a man who loved\ndissension, to give that to another which was none of his own, to bring\nit into dispute against the ancient possessors.  As to victuals, they\nwould supply them; that of gold they had little; it being a thing they\nhad in very small esteem, as of no use to the service of life, whereas\ntheir only care was to pass it over happily and pleasantly: but that what\nthey could find excepting what was employed in the service of their gods,\nthey might freely take.  As to one only God, the proposition had pleased\nthem well; but that they would not change their religion, both because\nthey had so long and happily lived in it, and that they were not wont to\ntake advice of any but their friends, and those they knew: as to their\nmenaces, it was a sign of want of judgment to threaten those whose nature\nand power were to them unknown; that, therefore, they were to make haste\nto quit their coast, for they were not used to take the civilities and\nprofessions of armed men and strangers in good part; otherwise they\nshould do by them as they had done by those others,\" showing them the\nheads of several executed men round the walls of their city.  A fair\nexample of the babble of these children.  But so it is, that the\nSpaniards did not, either in this or in several other places, where they\ndid not find the merchandise they sought, make any stay or attempt,\nwhatever other conveniences were there to be had; witness my CANNIBALS.\n--[Chapter XXX. of Book I.]\n\nOf the two most puissant monarchs of that world, and, peradventure, of\nthis, kings of so many kings, and the last they turned out, he of Peru,\nhaving been taken in a battle, and put to so excessive a ransom as\nexceeds all belief, and it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his\nconversation, given manifest signs of a frank, liberal, and constant\nspirit, and of a clear and settled understanding, the conquerors had a\nmind, after having exacted one million three hundred and twenty-five\nthousand and five hundred weight of gold, besides silver, and other\nthings which amounted to no less (so that their horses were shod with\nmassy gold), still to see, at the price of what disloyalty and injustice\nwhatever, what the remainder of the treasures of this king might be, and\nto possess themselves of that also.  To this end a false accusation was\npreferred against him, and false witnesses brought to prove that he went\nabout to raise an insurrection in his provinces, to procure his own\nliberty; whereupon, by the virtuous sentence of those very men who had by\nthis treachery conspired his ruin, he was condemned to be publicly hanged\nand strangled, after having made him buy off the torment of being burnt\nalive, by the baptism they gave him immediately before execution; a\nhorrid and unheard of barbarity, which, nevertheless, he underwent\nwithout giving way either in word or look, with a truly grave and royal\nbehaviour.  After which, to calm and appease the people, aroused and\nastounded at so strange a thing, they counterfeited great sorrow for his\ndeath, and appointed most sumptuous funerals.\n\nThe other king of Mexico,--[Guatimosin]--having for a long time defended\nhis beleaguered city, and having in this siege manifested the utmost of\nwhat suffering and perseverance can do, if ever prince and people did,\nand his misfortune having delivered him alive into his enemies' hands,\nupon articles of being treated like a king, neither did he in his\ncaptivity discover anything unworthy of that title.  His enemies, after\ntheir victory, not finding so much gold as they expected, when they had\nsearched and rifled with their utmost diligence, they went about to\nprocure discoveries by the most cruel torments they could invent upon the\nprisoners they had taken: but having profited nothing by these, their\ncourage being greater than their torments, they arrived at last to such a\ndegree of fury, as, contrary to their faith and the law of nations, to\ncondemn the king himself, and one of the principal noblemen of his court,\nto the rack, in the presence of one another.  This lord, finding himself\novercome with pain, being environed with burning coals, pitifully turned\nhis dying eyes towards his master, as it were to ask him pardon that he\nwas able to endure no more; whereupon the king, darting at him a fierce\nand severe look, as reproaching his cowardice and pusillanimity, with a\nharsh and constant voice said to him thus only: \"And what dost thou think\nI suffer? am I in a bath? am I more at ease than thou?\"  Whereupon the\nother immediately quailed under the torment and died upon the spot.  The\nking, half roasted, was carried thence; not so much out of pity (for what\ncompassion ever touched so barbarous souls, who, upon the doubtful\ninformation of some vessel of gold to be made a prey of, caused not only\na man, but a king, so great in fortune and desert, to be broiled before\ntheir eyes), but because his constancy rendered their cruelty still more\nshameful.  They afterwards hanged him for having nobly attempted to\ndeliver himself by arms from so long a captivity and subjection, and he\ndied with a courage becoming so magnanimous a prince.\n\nAnother time, they burnt in the same fire four hundred and sixty men\nalive at once, the four hundred of the common people, the sixty the\nprincipal lords of a province, simply prisoners of war.  We have these\nnarratives from themselves for they not only own it, but boast of it and\npublish it.  Could it be for a testimony of their justice or their zeal\nto religion?  Doubtless these are ways too differing and contrary to so\nholy an end.  Had they proposed to themselves to extend our faith, they\nwould have considered that it does not amplify in the possession of\nterritories, but in the gaining of men; and would have more than\nsatisfied themselves with the slaughters occasioned by the necessity of\nwar, without indifferently mixing a massacre, as upon wild beasts, as\nuniversal as fire and sword could make it; having only, by intention,\nsaved so many as they meant to make miserable slaves of, for the work and\nservice of their mines; so that many of the captains were put to death\nupon the place of conquest, by order of the kings of Castile, justly\noffended with the horror of their deportment, and almost all of them\nhated and disesteemed.  God meritoriously permitted that all this great\nplunder should be swallowed up by the sea in transportation, or in the\ncivil wars wherewith they devoured one another; and most of the men\nthemselves were buried in a foreign land without any fruit of their\nvictory.\n\nThat the revenue from these countries, though in the hands of so\nparsimonious and so prudent a prince,--[Phillip II.]--so little answers\nthe expectation given of it to his predecessors, and to that original\nabundance of riches which was found at the first landing in those new\ndiscovered countries (for though a great deal be fetched thence, yet we\nsee 'tis nothing in comparison of that which might be expected), is that\nthe use of coin was there utterly unknown, and that consequently their\ngold was found all hoarded together, being of no other use but for\nornament and show, as a furniture reserved from father to son by many\npuissant kings, who were ever draining their mines to make this vast heap\nof vessels and statues for the decoration of their palaces and temples;\nwhereas our gold is always in motion and traffic; we cut it into a\nthousand small pieces, and cast it into a thousand forms, and scatter and\ndisperse it in a thousand ways.  But suppose our kings should thus hoard\nup all the gold they could get in several ages and let it lie idle by\nthem.\n\nThose of the kingdom of Mexico were in some sort more civilised and more\nadvanced in arts than the other nations about them.  Therefore did they\njudge, as we do, that the world was near its period, and looked upon the\ndesolation we brought amongst them as a certain sign of it.  They\nbelieved that the existence of the world was divided into five ages, and\nin the life of five successive suns, of which four had already ended\ntheir time, and that this which gave them light was the fifth.  The first\nperished, with all other creatures, by an universal inundation of water;\nthe second by the heavens falling upon us and suffocating every living\nthing to which age they assigned the giants, and showed bones to the\nSpaniards, according to the proportion of which the stature of men\namounted to twenty feet; the third by fire, which burned and consumed\nall; the fourth by an emotion of the air and wind, which came with such\nviolence as to beat down even many mountains, wherein the men died not,\nbut were turned into baboons.  What impressions will not the weakness of\nhuman belief admit?  After the death of this fourth sun, the world was\ntwenty-five years in perpetual darkness: in the fifteenth of which a man\nand a woman were created, who restored the human race: ten years after,\nupon a certain day, the sun appeared newly created, and since the account\nof their year takes beginning from that day: the third day after its\ncreation the ancient gods died, and the new ones were since born daily.\nAfter what manner they think this last sun shall perish, my author knows\nnot; but their number of this fourth change agrees with the great\nconjunction of stars which eight hundred and odd years ago, as\nastrologers suppose, produced great alterations and novelties in the\nworld.\n\nAs to pomp and magnificence, upon the account of which I engaged in this\ndiscourse, neither Greece, Rome, nor Egypt, whether for utility,\ndifficulty, or state, can compare any of their works with the highway to\nbe seen in Peru, made by the kings of the country, from the city of Quito\nto that of Cusco (three hundred leagues), straight, even, five-and-twenty\npaces wide, paved, and provided on both sides with high and beautiful\nwalls; and close by them, and all along on the inside, two perennial\nstreams, bordered with beautiful plants, which they call moly.  In this\nwork, where they met with rocks and mountains, they cut them through, and\nmade them even, and filled up pits and valleys with lime and stone to\nmake them level.  At the end of every day's journey are beautiful\npalaces, furnished with provisions, vestments, and arms, as well for\ntravellers as for the armies that are to pass that way.  In the estimate\nof this work I have reckoned the difficulty which is especially\nconsiderable in that place; they did not build with any stones less than\nten feet square, and had no other conveniency of carriage but by drawing\ntheir load themselves by force of arm, and knew not so much as the art of\nscaffolding, nor any other way of standing to their work, but by throwing\nup earth against the building as it rose higher, taking it away again\nwhen they had done.\n\nLet us here return to our coaches.  Instead of these, and of all other\nsorts of carriages, they caused themselves to be carried upon men's\nshoulders.  This last king of Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus\ncarried betwixt two upon staves of gold, and set in a chair of gold in\nthe middle of his army.  As many of these sedan-men as were killed to\nmake him fall (for they would take him alive), so many others (and they\ncontended for it) took the place of those who were slain, so that they\ncould never beat him down, what slaughter soever they made of these\npeople, till a horseman, seizing upon him, brought him to the ground.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nOF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS\n\nSince we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge our selves by railing at\nit; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its\ndefects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how\nmuch to be coveted soever.  Greatness has, in general, this manifest\nadvantage, that it can lower itself when it pleases, and has, very near,\nthe choice of both the one and the other condition; for a man does not\nfall from all heights; there are several from which one may descend\nwithout falling down.  It does, indeed, appear to me that we value it at\ntoo high a rate, and also overvalue the resolution of those whom we have\neither seen or heard have contemned it, or displaced themselves of their\nown accord: its essence is not so evidently commodious that a man may\nnot, with out a miracle, refuse it.  I find it a very hard thing to\nundergo misfortunes, but to be content with a moderate measure of\nfortune, and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy matter.  'Tis,\nmethinks, a virtue to which I, who am no conjuror, could without any\ngreat endeavour arrive.  What, then, is to be expected from them that\nwould yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal,\nwherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself,\nand fruition of greatness?  Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself\nbetter, according to itself, than when it proceeds by obscure and\nunfrequented ways.\n\nI incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as I can towards\ndesire.  I have as much to wish for as another, and allow my wishes as\nmuch liberty and indiscretion; but yet it never befell me to wish for\neither empire or royalty, or the eminency of those high and commanding\nfortunes: I do not aim that way; I love myself too well.  When I think to\ngrow greater, 'tis but very moderately, and by a compelled and timorous\nadvancement, such as is proper for me in resolution, in prudence, in\nhealth, in beauty, and even in riches too; but this supreme reputation,\nthis mighty authority, oppress my imagination; and, quite contrary to\nthat other,--[Julius Caesar.]--I should, peradventure, rather choose to\nbe the second or third in Perigord than the first at Paris at least,\nwithout lying, rather the third at Paris than the first.  I would neither\ndispute with a porter, a miserable unknown, nor make crowds open in\nadoration as I pass.  I am trained up to a moderate condition, as well by\nmy choice as fortune; and have made it appear, in the whole conduct of my\nlife and enterprises, that I have rather avoided than otherwise the\nclimbing above the degree of fortune wherein God has placed me by my\nbirth; all natural constitution is equally just and easy.  My soul is\nsuch a poltroon, that I measure not good fortune by the height, but by\nthe facility.\n\nBut if my heart be not great enough, 'tis open enough to make amends, at\nany one's request, freely to lay open its weakness.  Should any one put\nme upon comparing the life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, handsome,\nlearned, healthful, understanding, and abounding in all sorts of\nconveniences and pleasures, leading a quiet life, and all his own, his\nmind well prepared against death, superstition, pain, and other\nincumbrances of human necessity, dying, at last, in battle, with his\nsword in his hand, for the defence of his country, on the one part; and\non the other part, the life of M. Regulus, so great and high as is known\nto every one, and his end admirable; the one without name and without\ndignity, the other exemplary and glorious to a wonder.  I should\ndoubtless say, as Cicero did, could I speak as well as he.\n\n     [Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 20, gives the preference to Regulus, and\n     proclaims him the happier man.]\n\nBut if I was to compare them with my own, I should then also say that the\nfirst is as much according to my capacity, and from desire, which I\nconform to my capacity, as the second is far beyond it; that I could not\napproach the last but with veneration, the other I could readily attain\nby use.\n\nLet us return to our temporal greatness, from which we are digressed.  I\ndisrelish all dominion, whether active or passive.  Otanes, one of the\nseven who had right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should\nwillingly have done, which was, that he gave up to his competitors his\nright of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided\nthat he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and\nsubjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all\nliberty that was not prejudicial to these, being as impatient of\ncommanding as of being commanded.\n\nThe most painful and difficult employment in the world, in my opinion, is\nworthily to discharge the office of a king.  I excuse more of their\nmistakes than men commonly do, in consideration of the intolerable weight\nof their function, which astounds me.  'Tis hard to keep measure in so\nimmeasurable a power; yet so it is that it is, even to those who are not\nof the best nature, a singular incitement to virtue to be seated in a\nplace where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon\nrecord, and where the least benefit redounds to so many men, and where\nyour talent of administration, like that of preachers, principally\naddresses itself to the people, no very exact judge, easy to deceive, and\neasily content.  There are few things wherein we can give a sincere\njudgment, by reason that there are few wherein we have not, in some sort,\na private interest.  Superiority and inferiority, dominion and subjection\nare bound to a natural envy and contest, and must of necessity\nperpetually intrench upon one another.  I believe neither the one nor the\nother touching the rights of the other party; let reason therefore, which\nis inflexible and without passion, determine when we can avail ourselves\nof it.  'Tis not above a month ago that I read over, two Scottish authors\ncontending upon this subject, of whom he who stands for the people makes\nthe king to be in a worse condition than a carter; he who writes for\nmonarchy places him some degrees above God in power and sovereignty.\n\nNow, the incommodity of greatness that I have taken to remark in this\nplace, upon some occasion that has lately put it into my head, is this:\nthere is not, peradventure, anything more pleasant in the commerce of\nmany than the trials that we make against one another, out of emulation\nof honour and worth, whether in the exercises of the body or in those of\nthe mind, wherein sovereign greatness can have no true part.  And, in\nearnest, I have often thought that by force of respect itself men use\nprinces disdainfully and injuriously in that particular; for the thing I\nwas infinitely offended at in my childhood, that they who exercised with\nme forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their\nutmost endeavour, is what we see happen to them daily, every one finding\nhimself unworthy to contend with them.  If we discover that they have the\nleast desire to get the better of us, there is no one who will not make\nit his business to give it them, and who will not rather betray his own\nglory than offend theirs; and will therein employ so much force only as\nis necessary to save their honour.  What share have they, then, in the\nengagement, where every one is on their side?  Methinks I see those\npaladins of ancient times presenting themselves to jousts and battle with\nenchanted arms and bodies.  Brisson,\n\n     [Plutarch, On Satisfaction or Tranquillity of the Mind.  But in his\n     essay, How a Man may Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, he calls\n     him Chriso.]\n\nrunning against Alexander, purposely missed his blow, and made a fault in\nhis career; Alexander chid him for it, but he ought to have had him\nwhipped.  Upon this consideration Carneades said, that \"the sons of\nprinces learned nothing right but to manage horses; by reason that, in\nall their other exercises, every one bends and yields to them; but a\nhorse, that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier, throws the son of a\nking with no more ceremony than he would throw that of a porter.\"\n\nHomer was fain to consent that Venus, so sweet and delicate a goddess as\nshe was, should be wounded at the battle of Troy, thereby to ascribe\ncourage and boldness to her qualities that cannot possibly be in those\nwho are exempt from danger.  The gods are made to be angry, to fear, to\nrun away, to be jealous, to grieve, to be transported with passions, to\nhonour them with the virtues that, amongst us, are built upon these\nimperfections. Who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty, can\nclaim no interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents of\nhazardous actions.  'Tis pity a man should be so potent that all things\nmust give way to him; fortune therein sets you too remote from society,\nand places you in too great a solitude.  This easiness and mean facility\nof making all things bow under you, is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure:\n'tis to slide, not to go; 'tis to sleep, and not to live.  Conceive man\naccompanied with omnipotence: you overwhelm him; he must beg disturbance\nand opposition as an alms: his being and his good are in indigence. Evil\nto man is in its turn good, and good evil. Neither is pain always to be\nshunned, nor pleasure always to be pursued.\n\nTheir good qualities are dead and lost; for they can only be perceived by\ncomparison, and we put them out of this: they have little knowledge of\ntrue praise, having their ears deafened with so continual and uniform an\napprobation.  Have they to do with the stupidest of all their subjects?\nthey have no means to take any advantage of him; if he but say: \"'Tis\nbecause he is my king,\" he thinks he has said enough to express that he\ntherefore suffered himself to be overcome.  This quality stifles and\nconsumes the other true and essential qualities: they are sunk in the\nroyalty, and leave them nothing to recommend themselves with but actions\nthat directly concern and serve the function of their place; 'tis so much\nto be a king, that this alone remains to them.  The outer glare that\nenvirons him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there\nrepelled and dissipated, being filled and stopped by this prevailing\nlight.  The senate awarded the prize of eloquence to Tiberius; he refused\nit, esteeming that though it had been just, he could derive no advantage\nfrom a judgment so partial, and that was so little free to judge.\n\nAs we give them all advantages of honour, so do we soothe and authorise\nall their vices and defects, not only by approbation, but by imitation\nalso.  Every one of Alexander's followers carried his head on one side,\nas he did; and the flatterers of Dionysius ran against one another in his\npresence, and stumbled at and overturned whatever was under foot, to shew\nthey were as purblind as he.  Hernia itself has also served to recommend\na man to favour; I have seen deafness affected; and because the master\nhated his wife, Plutarch--[who, however, only gives one instance; and in\nthis he tells us that the man visited his wife privately.]--has seen his\ncourtiers repudiate theirs, whom they loved; and, which is yet more,\nuncleanliness and all manner of dissoluteness have so been in fashion; as\nalso disloyalty, blasphemy, cruelty, heresy, superstition, irreligion,\neffeminacy, and worse, if worse there be; and by an example yet more\ndangerous than that of Mithridates' flatterers, who, as their master\npretended to the honour of a good physician, came to him to have\nincisions and cauteries made in their limbs; for these others suffered\nthe soul, a more delicate and noble part, to be cauterised.\n\nBut to end where I began: the Emperor Adrian, disputing with the\nphilosopher Favorinus about the interpretation of some word, Favorinus\nsoon yielded him the victory; for which his friends rebuking him, \"You\ntalk simply,\" said he; \"would you not have him wiser than I, who commands\nthirty legions?\"  Augustus wrote verses against Asinius Pollio, and \"I,\"\nsaid Pollio, \"say nothing, for it is not prudence to write in contest\nwith him who has power to proscribe.\"  And they were right.  For\nDionysius, because he could not equal Philoxenus in poesy and Plato in\ndiscourse, condemned the one to the quarries, and sent the other to be\nsold for a slave into the island of AEgina.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nOF THE ART OF CONFERENCE\n\n'Tis a custom of our justice to condemn some for a warning to others.  To\ncondemn them for having done amiss, were folly, as Plato says,\n\n     [Diogenes Laertius, however, in his Life of Plato, iii. 181, says\n     that Plato's offence was the speaking too freely to the tyrant.]\n\nfor what is done can never be undone; but 'tis to the end they may offend\nno more, and that others may avoid the example of their offence: we do\nnot correct the man we hang; we correct others by him.  I do the same; my\nerrors are sometimes natural, incorrigible, and irremediable: but the\ngood which virtuous men do to the public, in making themselves imitated,\nI, peradventure, may do in making my manners avoided:\n\n         \"Nonne vides, Albi ut male vivat filius? utque\n          Barrus inops?  magnum documentum, ne patriam rein\n          Perdere guis velit;\"\n\n     [\"Dost thou not see how ill the son of Albus lives?  and how the\n     indigent Barrus? a great warning lest any one should incline to\n     dissipate his patrimony.\"--Horace, Sat., i. 4, 109.]\n\npublishing and accusing my own imperfections, some one will learn to be\nafraid of them.  The parts that I most esteem in myself, derive more\nhonour from decrying, than for commending myself which is the reason why\nI so often fall into, and so much insist upon that strain.  But, when all\nis summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; a man's\naccusations of himself are always believed; his praises never: There may,\nperadventure, be some of my own complexion who better instruct myself by\ncontrariety than by similitude, and by avoiding than by imitation.  The\nelder Cato was regarding this sort of discipline, when he said, \"that the\nwise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise\"; and Pausanias\ntells us of an ancient player upon the harp, who was wont to make his\nscholars go to hear one who played very ill, who lived over against him,\nthat they might learn to hate his discords and false measures.  The\nhorror of cruelty more inclines me to clemency, than any example of\nclemency could possibly do.  A good rider does not so much mend my seat,\nas an awkward attorney or a Venetian, on horseback; and a clownish way of\nspeaking more reforms mine than the most correct.  The ridiculous and\nsimple look of another always warns and advises me; that which pricks,\nrouses and incites much better than that which tickles.  The time is now\nproper for us to reform backward; more by dissenting than by agreeing; by\ndiffering more than by consent.  Profiting little by good examples, I\nmake use of those that are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I\nendeavour to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as\nconstant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as\ngood as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable\nmeasures.\n\nThe most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opinion, is\nconversation; I find the use of it more sweet than of any other action of\nlife; and for that reason it is that, if I were now compelled to choose,\nI should sooner, I think, consent to lose my sight, than my hearing and\nspeech.  The Athenians, and also the Romans, kept this exercise in great\nhonour in their academies; the Italians retain some traces of it to this\nday, to their great advantage, as is manifest by the comparison of our\nunderstandings with theirs.  The study of books is a languishing and\nfeeble motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises\nat once.  If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he\npresses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations\nstir up mine; jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up\nto something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether\ntedious in discourse.  But, as our mind fortifies itself by the\ncommunication of vigorous and regular understandings, 'tis not to be\nexpressed how much it loses and degenerates by the continual commerce and\nfamiliarity we have with mean and weak spirits; there is no contagion\nthat spreads like that; I know sufficiently by experience what 'tis worth\na yard.  I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with but few men, and\nfor myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great\npersons, and to make of a man's wit and words competitive parade is, in\nmy opinion, very unbecoming a man of honour.\n\nFolly is a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex\nat it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than\nfolly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself.  I enter\ninto conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch\nas opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and\nwherein to take any deep root; no propositions astonish me, no belief\noffends me, though never so contrary to my own; there is no so frivolous\nand extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the production\nof human wit.  We, who deprive our judgment of the right of determining,\nlook indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and if we incline not our\njudgment to them, yet we easily give them the hearing: Where one scale is\ntotally empty, I let the other waver under an old wife's dreams; and I\nthink myself excusable, if I prefer the odd number; Thursday rather than\nFriday; if I had rather be the twelfth or fourteenth than the thirteenth\nat table; if I had rather, on a journey, see a hare run by me than cross\nmy way, and rather give my man my left foot than my right, when he comes\nto put on my stockings.  All such reveries as are in credit around us,\ndeserve at least a hearing: for my part, they only with me import\ninanity, but they import that.  Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are\nsomething more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself\nto proceed so far, falls, peradventure, into the vice of obstinacy, to\navoid that of superstition.\n\nThe contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they\nonly rouse and exercise, me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to\noffer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form\nof conference, and not of authority.  At every opposition, we do not\nconsider whether or no it be dust, but, right or wrong, how to disengage\nourselves: instead of extending the arms, we thrust out our claws.  I\ncould suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend, so much as to tell\nme that I am a fool, and talk I know not of what.  I love stout\nexpressions amongst gentle men, and to have them speak as they think; we\nmust fortify and harden our hearing against this tenderness of the\nceremonious sound of words. I love a strong and manly familiarity and\nconversation: a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and\nvigour of its communication, like love in biting and scratching: it is\nnot vigorous and generous enough, if it be not quarrelsome, if it be\ncivilised and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock:\n\n       \"Neque enim disputari sine reprehensione potest.\"\n\n     [\"Neither can a man dispute, but he must contradict.\"\n     (Or:) \"Nor can people dispute without reprehension.\"\n     --Cicero, De Finib., i. 8.]\n\nWhen any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger: I\nadvance towards him who controverts, who instructs me; the cause of truth\nought to be the common cause both of the one and the other.  What will\nthe angry man answer?  Passion has already confounded his judgment;\nagitation has usurped the place of reason.  It were not amiss that the\ndecision of our disputes should pass by wager: that there might be a\nmaterial mark of our losses, to the end we might the better remember\nthem; and that my man might tell me: \"Your ignorance and obstinacy cost\nyou last year, at several times, a hundred crowns.\"  I hail and caress\ntruth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself,\nand open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided\nit be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and\naccommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility\nthan amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition\nby my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense.\n\nNevertheless, it is hard to bring the men of my time to it: they have not\nthe courage to correct, because they have not the courage to suffer\nthemselves to be corrected; and speak always with dissimulation in the\npresence of one another: I take so great a pleasure in being judged and\nknown, that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the two forms I am\nso: my imagination so often contradicts and condemns itself, that 'tis\nall one to me if another do it, especially considering that I give his\nreprehension no greater authority than I choose; but I break with him,\nwho carries himself so high, as I know of one who repents his advice,\nif not believed, and takes it for an affront if it be not immediately\nfollowed.  That Socrates always received smilingly the contradictions\noffered to his arguments, a man may say arose from his strength of\nreason; and that, the advantage being certain to fall on his side, he\naccepted them as a matter of new victory.  But we see, on the contrary,\nthat nothing in argument renders our sentiment so delicate, as the\nopinion of pre-eminence, and disdain of the adversary; and that, in\nreason, 'tis rather for the weaker to take in good part the oppositions\nthat correct him and set him right.  In earnest, I rather choose the\ncompany of those who ruffle me than of those who fear me; 'tis a dull and\nhurtful pleasure to have to do with people who admire us and approve of\nall we say.  Antisthenes commanded his children never to take it kindly\nor for a favour, when any man commended them.  I find I am much prouder\nof the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardour of dispute,\nI make myself submit to my adversary's force of reason, than I am pleased\nwith the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.  In fine, I\nreceive and admit of all manner of attacks that are direct, how weak\nsoever; but I am too impatient of those that are made out of form.  I\ncare not what the subject is, the opinions are to me all one, and I am\nalmost indifferent whether I get the better or the worse.  I can\npeaceably argue a whole day together, if the argument be carried on with\nmethod; I do not so much require force and subtlety as order; I mean the\norder which we every day observe in the wranglings of shepherds and\nshop-boys, but never amongst us: if they start from their subject, 'tis\nout of incivility, and so 'tis with us; but their tumult and impatience\nnever put them out of their theme; their argument still continues its\ncourse; if they interrupt, and do not stay for one another, they at least\nunderstand one another.  Any one answers too well for me, if he answers\nwhat I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the\nthing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion;\nfalling into wilful, malicious, and imperious way of disputation, of\nwhich I am afterwards ashamed.  'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a\nfool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a\nmaster, but my conscience also.\n\nOur disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal\ncrimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed\nand commanded by passion?  We first quarrel with their reasons, and then\nwith the men.  We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so,\nevery one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the\nfruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth.  Therefore it is\nthat Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred\npeople.  To what end do you go about to inquire of him, who knows nothing\nto the purpose?  A man does no injury to the subject, when he leaves it\nto seek how he may treat it; I do not mean by an artificial and\nscholastic way, but by a natural one, with a sound understanding.  What\nwill it be in the end?  One flies to the east, the other to the west;\nthey lose the principal, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents after an\nhour of tempest, they know not what they seek: one is low, the other\nhigh, and a third wide.  One catches at a word and a simile; another is\nno longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, and thinks only\nof going on at his own rate, not of answering you: another, finding\nhimself too weak to make good his rest, fears all, refuses all, at the\nvery beginning, confounds the subject; or, in the very height of the\ndispute, stops short and is silent, by a peevish ignorance affecting a\nproud contempt or a foolishly  modest avoidance of further debate:\nprovided this man strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open;\nthe other counts his words, and weighs them for reasons; another only\nbrawls, and uses the advantage of his lungs.  Here's one who learnedly\nconcludes against himself, and another who deafens you with prefaces and\nsenseless digressions: an other falls into downright railing, and seeks a\nquarrel after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit that\npresses too hard upon him: and a last man sees nothing into the reason of\nthe thing, but draws a line of circumvallation about you of dialectic\nclauses, and the formulas of his art.\n\nNow, who would not enter into distrust of sciences, and doubt whether he\ncan reap from them any solid fruit for the service of life, considering\nthe use we put them to?\n\n                    \"Nihil sanantibus litteris.\"\n\n          [\"Letters which cure nothing.\"--Seneca, Ep., 59.]\n\nWho has got understanding by his logic?  Where are all her fair promises?\n\n          \"Nec ad melius vivendum, nec ad commodius disserendum.\"\n\n          [\"It neither makes a man live better nor talk better.\"\n          --Cicero, De Fin., i. 19.]\n\nIs there more noise or confusion in the scolding of herring-wives than in\nthe public disputes of men of this profession?  I had rather my son\nshould learn in a tap-house to speak, than in the schools to prate.  Take\na master of arts, and confer with him: why does he not make us sensible\nof this artificial excellence? and why does he not captivate women and\nignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness of his reasons\nand the beauty of his order? why does he not sway and persuade us to what\nhe will? why does a man, who has so much advantage in matter and\ntreatment, mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations?\nStrip him of his gown, his hood, and his Latin, let him not batter our\nears with Aristotle, pure and simple, you will take him for one of us,\nor worse.  Whilst they torment us with this complication and confusion of\nwords, it fares with them, methinks, as with jugglers; their dexterity\nimposes upon our senses, but does not at all work upon our belief this\nlegerdemain excepted, they perform nothing that is not very ordinary and\nmean: for being the more learned, they are none the less fools.\n\n     [So Hobbes said that if he had read as much as the academical\n     pedants he should have known as little.]\n\nI love and honour knowledge as much as they that have it, and in its true\nuse 'tis the most noble and the greatest acquisition of men; but in such\nas I speak of (and the number of them is infinite), who build their\nfundamental sufficiency and value upon it, who appeal from their\nunderstanding to their memory:\n\n                    \"Sub aliena umbra latentes,\"\n\n     [\"Sheltering under the shadow of others.\"--Seneca, Ep., 33.]\n\nand who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, if I dare to say so, worse\nthan stupidity.  In my country, and in my time, learning improves\nfortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and\nheavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and\nundigested mass; if airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtilises\nthem, even to exinanition.  'Tis a thing of almost indifferent quality;\na very useful accession to a well-born soul, but hurtful and pernicious\nto others; or rather a thing of very precious use, that will not suffer\nitself to be purchased at an under rate; in the hand of some 'tis a\nsceptre, in that of others a fool's bauble.\n\nBut let us proceed.  What greater victory do you expect than to make your\nenemy see and know that he is not able to encounter you?  When you get\nthe better of your argument; 'tis truth that wins; when you get the\nadvantage of form and method,'tis then you who win.  I am of opinion that\nin, Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour of the disputants\nthan in favour of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthydemus and\nProtagoras in the, knowledge of their impertinence, than in the\nimpertinence of their art.  He takes hold of the first subject like one\nwho has a more profitable end than to explain it--namely, to clear the\nunderstandings that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise.  To hunt\nafter truth is properly our business, and we are inexcusable if we carry\non the chase impertinently and ill; to fail of seizing it is another\nthing, for we are born to inquire after truth: it belongs to a greater\npower to possess it.  It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of\nthe deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine\nknowledge.  The world is but a school of inquisition: it is not who shall\nenter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.  He may as well play\nthe fool who speaks true, as he who speaks false, for we are upon the\nmanner, not the matter, of speaking.  'Tis my humour as much to regard\nthe form as the substance, and the advocate as much as the cause, as\nAlcibiades ordered we should: and every day pass away my time in reading\nauthors without any consideration of their learning; their manner is what\nI look after, not their subject: And just so do I hunt after the\nconversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach me, but that I may\nknow him, and that knowing him, if I think him worthy of imitation, I may\nimitate him.  Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically,\nprudently, and fully, is a talent that few men have.  The falsity that\nproceeds from ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it.  I\nhave broken off several treaties  that would have been of advantage to\nme, by reason of the impertinent contestations of those with whom I\ntreated.  I am not moved once in a year at the faults of those over whom\nI have authority, but upon the account of the ridiculous obstinacy of\ntheir allegations, denials, excuses, we are every day going together by\nthe ears; they neither understand what is said, nor why, and answer\naccordingly; 'tis enough to drive a man mad.  I never feel any hurt upon\nmy head but when 'tis knocked against another, and more easily forgive\nthe vices of my servants than their boldness, importunity, and folly; let\nthem do less, provided they understand what they do: you live in hope to\nwarm their affection to your service, but there is nothing to be had or\nto be expected from a stock.\n\nBut what, if I take things otherwise than they are?  Perhaps I do; and\ntherefore it is that I accuse my own impatience, and hold, in the first\nplace, that it is equally vicious both in him that is in the right, and\nin him that is in the wrong; for 'tis always a tyrannic sourness not to\nendure a form contrary to one's own: and, besides, there cannot, in\ntruth, be a greater, more constant, nor more irregular folly than to be\nmoved and angry at the follies of the world, for it principally makes us\nquarrel with ourselves; and the old philosopher never wanted an occasion\nfor his tears whilst he considered himself.  Miso, one of the seven\nsages, of a Timonian and Democritic humour, being asked,  \"what he\nlaughed at, being alone?\"--\"That I do laugh alone,\" answered he.  How\nmany ridiculous things, in my own opinion, do I say and answer every day\nthat comes over my head?  and then how many more, according to the\nopinion of others?  If I bite my own lips, what ought others to do?  In\nfine, we must live amongst the living, and let the river run under the\nbridge without our care, or, at least, without our interference.  In\ntruth, why do we meet a man with a hunch-back, or any other deformity,\nwithout being moved, and cannot endure the encounter of a deformed mind\nwithout being angry?  this vicious sourness sticks more to the judge than\nto the crime.  Let us always have this saying of Plato in our mouths: \"Do\nnot I think things unsound, because I am not sound in myself?  Am I not\nmyself in fault?  may not my observations reflect upon myself?\"--a wise\nand divine saying, that lashes the most universal and common error of\nmankind.  Not only the reproaches that we throw in the face of one\nanother, but our reasons also, our arguments and controversies, are\nreboundable upon us, and we wound ourselves with our own weapons: of\nwhich antiquity has left me enough grave examples.  It was ingeniously\nand home-said by him, who was the inventor of this sentence:\n\n                    \"Stercus cuique suum bene olet.\"\n\n          [\"To every man his own excrements smell well.\"--Erasmus]\n\nWe see nothing behind us; we mock ourselves an hundred times a day; when\nwe deride our neighbours; and we detest in others the defects which are\nmore manifest in us, and which we admire with marvellous inadvertency and\nimpudence.  It was but yesterday that I heard a man of understanding and\nof good rank, as pleasantly as justly scoffing at the folly of another,\nwho did nothing but torment everybody with the catalogue of his genealogy\nand alliances, above half of them false (for they are most apt to fall\ninto such ridiculous discourses, whose qualities are most dubious and\nleast sure), and yet, would he have looked into himself, he would have\ndiscerned himself to be no less intemperate and wearisome in extolling\nhis wife's pedigree.  O importunate presumption, with which the wife sees\nherself armed by the hands of her own husband.  Did he understand Latin,\nwe should say to him:\n\n          \"Age, si hic non insanit satis sua sponte, instiga.\"\n\n     [\"Come!  if of himself he is not mad enough, urge him on.\"\n     --Terence, And., iv. 2, 9.]\n\nI do not say that no man should accuse another, who is not clean\nhimself,--for then no one would ever accuse,--clean from the same sort of\nspot; but I mean that our judgment, falling upon another who is then in\nquestion, should not, at the same time, spare ourselves, but sentence us\nwith an inward and severe authority.  'Tis an office of charity, that he\nwho cannot reclaim himself from a vice, should, nevertheless, endeavour\nto remove it from another, in whom, peradventure, it may not have so deep\nand so malignant a root; neither do him who reproves me for my fault that\nhe himself is guilty of the same.  What of that?  The reproof is,\nnotwithstanding, true and of very good use.  Had we a good nose, our own\nordure would stink worse to us, forasmuch as it is our own: and Socrates\nis of opinion that whoever should find himself, his son, and a stranger\nguilty of any violence and wrong, ought to begin with himself, present\nhimself first to the sentence of justice, and implore, to purge himself,\nthe assistance of the hand of the executioner; in the next place, he\nshould proceed to his son, and lastly, to the stranger.  If this precept\nseem too severe, he ought at least to present himself the first, to the\npunishment of his own conscience.\n\nThe senses are our first and proper judges, which perceive not things but\nby external accidents; and 'tis no wonder, if in all the parts of the\nservice of our society, there is so perpetual and universal a mixture of\nceremonies and superficial appearances; insomuch that the best and most\neffectual part of our polities therein consist.  'Tis still man with whom\nwe have to do, of whom the condition is wonderfully corporal.  Let those\nwho, of these late years, would erect for us such a contemplative and\nimmaterial an exercise of religion, not wonder if there be some who think\nit had vanished and melted through their fingers had it not more upheld\nitself among us as a mark, title, and instrument of division and faction,\nthan by itself.  As in conference, the gravity, robe, and fortune of him\nwho speaks, ofttimes gives reputation to vain arguments and idle words,\nit is not to be presumed but that a man, so attended and feared, has not\nin him more than ordinary sufficiency; and that he to whom the king has\ngiven so many offices and commissions and charges, he so supercilious and\nproud, has not a great deal more in him, than another who salutes him at\nso great a distance, and who has no employment at all.  Not only the\nwords, but the grimaces also of these people, are considered and put into\nthe account; every one making it his business to give them some fine and\nsolid interpretation.  If they stoop to the common conference, and that\nyou offer anything but approbation and reverence, they then knock you\ndown with the authority of their experience: they have heard, they have\nseen, they have done so and so: you are crushed with examples.  I should\nwillingly tell them, that the fruit of a surgeon's experience, is not the\nhistory of his practice and his remembering that he has cured four people\nof the plague and three of the gout, unless he knows how thence to\nextract something whereon to form his judgment, and to make us sensible\nthat he has thence become more skillful in his art.  As in a concert of\ninstruments, we do not hear a lute, a harpsichord, or a flute alone, but\none entire harmony, the result of all together.  If travel and offices\nhave improved them, 'tis a product of their understanding to make it\nappear.  'Tis not enough to reckon experiences, they must weigh, sort and\ndistil them, to extract the reasons and conclusions they carry along with\nthem.  There were never so many historians: it is, indeed, good and of\nuse to read them, for they furnish us everywhere with excellent and\nlaudable instructions from the magazine of their memory, which,\ndoubtless, is of great concern to the help of life; but 'tis not that we\nseek for now: we examine whether these relaters and collectors of things\nare commendable themselves.\n\nI hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed.  I am very ready to\noppose myself against those vain circumstances that delude our judgments\nby the senses; and keeping my eye close upon those extraordinary\ngreatnesses, I find that at best they are men, as others are:\n\n          \"Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa\n          Fortuna.\"\n\n     [\"For in those high fortunes, common sense is generally rare.\"\n     --Juvenal, viii. 73.]\n\nPeradventure, we esteem and look upon them for less than they are, by\nreason they undertake more, and more expose themselves; they do not\nanswer to the charge they have undertaken.  There must be more vigour and\nstrength in the bearer than in the burden; he who has not lifted as much\nas he can, leaves you to guess that he has still a strength beyond that,\nand that he has not been tried to the utmost of what he is able to do; he\nwho sinks under his load, makes a discovery of his best, and the weakness\nof his shoulders.  This is the reason that we see so many silly souls\namongst the learned, and more than those of the better sort: they would\nhave made good husbandmen, good merchants, and good artisans: their\nnatural vigour was cut out to that proportion.  Knowledge is a thing of\ngreat weight, they faint under it: their understanding has neither vigour\nnor dexterity enough to set forth and distribute, to employ or make use\nof this rich and powerful matter; it has no prevailing virtue but in a\nstrong nature; and such natures are very rare--and the weak ones, says\nSocrates, corrupt the dignity of philosophy in the handling, it appears\nuseless and vicious, when lodged in an ill-contrived mind.  They spoil\nand make fools of themselves:\n\n              \"Humani qualis simulator simius oris,\n               Quern puer arridens pretioso stamine serum\n               Velavit, nudasque nates ac terga reliquit,\n               Ludibrium mensis.\"\n\n     [\"Just like an ape, simulator of the human face, whom a wanton boy\n     has dizened up in rich silks above, but left the lower parts bare,\n     for a laughing-stock for the tables.\"\n     --Claudian, in Eutrop., i 303.]\n\nNeither is it enough for those who govern and command us, and have all\nthe world in their hands, to have a common understanding, and to be able\nto do the same that we can; they are very much below us, if they be not\ninfinitely above us: as they promise more, so they are to perform more.\n\nAnd yet silence is to them, not only a countenance of respect and\ngravity, but very often of good advantage too: for Megabyzus, going 'to\nsee Apelles in his painting-room, stood a great while without speaking a\nword, and at last began to talk of his paintings, for which he received\nthis rude reproof: \"Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some\ngreat thing, by reason of thy chains and rich habit; but now that we have\nheard thee speak, there is not the meanest boy in my workshop that does\nnot despise thee.\"  Those princely ornaments, that mighty state, did not\npermit him to be ignorant with a common ignorance, and to speak\nimpertinently of painting; he ought to have kept this external and\npresumptive knowledge by silence.  To how many foolish fellows of my time\nhas a sullen and silent mien procured the credit of prudence and\ncapacity!\n\nDignities and offices are of necessity conferred more by fortune than\nupon the account of merit; and we are often to blame, to condemn kings\nwhen these are misplaced: on the contrary, 'tis a wonder they should have\nso good luck, where there is so little skill:\n\n               \"Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos;\"\n\n          [\"'Tis the chief virtue of a prince to know his people.\"\n          --Martial, viii. 15.]\n\nfor nature has not given them a sight that can extend to so many people,\nto discern which excels the rest, nor to penetrate into our bosoms, where\nthe knowledge of our wills and best value lies they must choose us by\nconjecture and by groping; by the family, wealth, learning, and the voice\nof the people, which are all very feeble arguments.  Whoever could find\nout a way by which they might judge by justice, and choose men by reason,\nwould, in this one thing, establish a perfect form of government.\n\n\"Ay, but he brought that great affair to a very good pass.\"  This is,\nindeed, to say something, but not to say enough: for this sentence is\njustly received, \"That we are not to judge of counsels by events.\"\nThe Carthaginians punished the ill counsels of their captains, though\nthey were rectified by a successful issue; and the Roman people often\ndenied a triumph for great and very advantageous victories because the\nconduct of their general was not answerable to his good fortune.\nWe ordinarily see, in the actions of the world, that Fortune, to shew\nus her power in all things, and who takes a pride in abating our\npresumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them\nfortunate in emulation of virtue; and most favours those operations the\nweb of which is most purely her own; whence it is that the simplest\namongst us bring to pass great business, both public and private; and,\nas Seiramnes, the Persian, answered those who wondered that his affairs\nsucceeded so ill, considering that his deliberations were so wise, \"that\nhe was sole master of his designs, but that success was wholly in the\npower of fortune\";  these may answer the same, but with a contrary turn.\nMost worldly affairs are performed by themselves\n\n                         \"Fata viam inveniunt;\"\n\n          [\"The destinies find the way.\"--AEneid, iii. 395]\n\nthe event often justifies a very foolish conduct; our interposition is\nlittle more than as it were a running on by rote, and more commonly a\nconsideration of custom and example, than of reason.  Being formerly\nastonished at the greatness of some affair, I have been made acquainted\nwith their motives and address by those who had performed it, and have\nfound nothing in it but very ordinary counsels; and the most common and\nusual are indeed, perhaps, the most sure and convenient for practice, if\nnot for show.  What if the plainest reasons are the best seated?  the\nmeanest, lowest, and most beaten more adapted to affairs?  To maintain\nthe authority of the counsels of kings, it needs not that profane persons\nshould participate of them, or see further into them than the outmost\nbarrier; he who will husband its reputation must be reverenced upon\ncredit and taken altogether.  My consultation somewhat rough-hews the\nmatter, and considers it lightly by the first face it presents: the\nstress and main of the business I have been wont to refer to heaven;\n\n                         \"Permitte divis caetera.\"\n\n          [\"Leave the rest to the gods.\"--Horace, Od., i.  9, 9.]\n\nGood and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two sovereign powers; 'tis folly\nto think that human prudence can play the part of Fortune; and vain is\nhis attempt who presumes to comprehend both causes and consequences, and\nby the hand to conduct the progress of his design; and most especially\nvain in the deliberations of war.  There was never greater circumspection\nand military prudence than sometimes is seen amongst us: can it be that\nmen are afraid to lose themselves by the way, that they reserve\nthemselves to the end of the game?  I moreover affirm that our wisdom\nitself and consultation, for the most part commit themselves to the\nconduct of chance; my will and my reason are sometimes moved by one\nbreath, and sometimes by another; and many of these movements there are\nthat govern themselves without me: my reason has uncertain and casual\nagitations and impulsions:\n\n         \"Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus\n          Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat,\n          Concipiunt.\"\n\n     [\"The aspects of their minds change; and they conceive now such\n     ideas, now such, just so long as the wind agitated the clouds.\"\n     --Virgil, Georg., i.  42.]\n\nLet a man but observe who are of greatest authority in cities, and who\nbest do their own business; we shall find that they are commonly men of\nthe least parts: women, children, and madmen have had the fortune to\ngovern great kingdoms equally well with the wisest princes, and\nThucydides says, that the stupid more ordinarily do it than those of\nbetter understandings; we attribute the effects of their good fortune to\ntheir prudence:\n\n                    \"Ut quisque Fortuna utitur,\n          Ita praecellet; atque exinde sapere illum omnes dicimus;\"\n\n     [\"He makes his way who knows how to use Fortune, and thereupon we\n     all call him wise.\"--Plautus, Pseudol., ii. 3, 13.]\n\nwherefore I say unreservedly, events are a very poor testimony of our\nworth and parts.\n\nNow, I was upon this point, that there needs no more but to see a man\npromoted to dignity; though we knew him but three days before a man of\nlittle regard, yet an image of grandeur of sufficiency insensibly steals\ninto our opinion, and we persuade ourselves that, being augmented in\nreputation and train, he is also increased in merit; we judge of him, not\naccording to his worth, but as we do by counters, according to the\nprerogative of his place.  If it happen so that he fall again, and be\nmixed with the common crowd, every one inquires with amazement into the\ncause of his having been raised so high.  \"Is this he,\" say they, \"was he\nno wiser when he was there?  Do princes satisfy themselves with so\nlittle?  Truly, we were in good hands.\"  This is a thing that I have\noften seen in my time.  Nay, even the very disguise of grandeur\nrepresented in our comedies in some sort moves and gulls us.  That which\nI myself adore in kings is the crowd of their adorers; all reverence and\nsubmission are due to them, except that of the understanding: my reason\nis not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are.  Melanthius being asked\nwhat he thought of the tragedy of Dionysius, \"I could not see it,\" said\nhe, \"it was so clouded with language\"; so most of those who judge of the\ndiscourses of great men ought to say, \"I did not understand his words,\nthey were so clouded with gravity, grandeur, and majesty.\"  Antisthenes\none day tried to persuade the Athenians to give order that their asses\nmight be employed in tilling the ground as well as the horses were; to\nwhich it was answered that that animal was not destined for such a\nservice: \"That's all one,\" replied he, \"you have only to order it: for\nthe most ignorant and incapable men you employ in the commands of your\nwars incontinently become worthy enough, because you employ them\"; to\nwhich the custom of so many people, who canonise the king they have\nchosen out of their own body, and are not content only to honour, but\nmust adore them, comes very near.  Those of Mexico, after the ceremonies\nof their king's coronation are over, dare no more look him in the face;\nbut, as if they had deified him by his royalty.  Amongst the oaths they\nmake him take to maintain their religion, their laws, and liberties, to\nbe valiant, just, and mild, he moreover swears to make the sun run his\ncourse in his wonted light, to drain the clouds at fit seasons, to make\nrivers run their course, and to cause the earth to bear all things\nnecessary for his people.\n\nI differ from this common fashion, and am more apt to suspect the\ncapacity when I see it accompanied with that grandeur of fortune and\npublic applause; we are to consider of what advantage it is to speak when\na man pleases, to choose his subject, to interrupt or change it, with a\nmagisterial authority; to protect himself from the oppositions of others\nby a nod, a smile, or silence, in the presence of an assembly that\ntrembles with reverence and respect.  A man of a prodigious fortune\ncoming to give his judgment upon some slight dispute that was foolishly\nset on foot at his table, began in these words: \"It can be no other but\na liar or a fool that will say otherwise than so and so.\"  Pursue this\nphilosophical point with a dagger in your hand.\n\nThere is another observation I have made, from which I draw great\nadvantage; which is, that in conferences and disputes, every word that\nseems to be good, is not immediately to be accepted.  Most men are rich\nin borrowed sufficiency: a man may say a good thing, give a good answer,\ncite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one\nor the other.  That a man may not understand all he borrows, may perhaps\nbe verified in myself.  A man must not always presently yield, what truth\nor beauty soever may seem to be in the opposite argument; either he must\nstoutly meet it, or retire, under colour of not understanding it, to try,\non all parts, how it is lodged in the author.  It may happen that we\nentangle ourselves, and help to strengthen the point itself.  I have\nsometimes, in the necessity and heat of the combat, made answers that\nhave gone through and through, beyond my expectation or hope; I only gave\nthem in number, they were received in weight.  As, when I contend with a\nvigorous man, I please myself with anticipating his conclusions, I ease\nhim of the trouble of explaining himself, I strive to forestall his\nimagination whilst it is yet springing and imperfect; the order and\npertinency of his understanding warn and threaten me afar off: I deal\nquite contrary with the others; I must understand, and presuppose nothing\nbut by them.  If they determine in general words, \"this is good, that is\nnaught,\" and that they happen to be in the right, see if it be not\nfortune that hits it off for them: let them a little circumscribe and\nlimit their judgment; why, or how, it is so.  These universal judgments\nthat I see so common, signify nothing; these are men who salute a whole\npeople in a crowd together; they, who have a real acquaintance, take\nnotice of and salute them individually and by name.  But 'tis a hazardous\nattempt; and from which I have, more than every day, seen it fall out,\nthat weak understandings, having a mind to appear ingenious, in taking\nnotice, as they read a book, of what is best and most to be admired, fix\ntheir admiration upon some thing so very ill chosen, that instead of\nmaking us discern the excellence of the author; they make us very well\nsee their own ignorance.  This exclamation is safe, \"That is fine,\" after\nhaving heard a whole page of Virgil;  by that the cunning sort save\nthemselves; but to undertake to follow him line by line, and, with an\nexpert and tried judgment, to observe where a good author excels himself,\nweighing the words, phrases, inventions, and his various excellences, one\nafter another; keep aloof from that:\n\n     \"Videndum est, non modo quid quisque loquatur, sed etiam quid\n     quisque sentiat, atque etiam qua de causa quisque sentiat.\"\n\n     [\"A man is not only to examine what every one says, but also what\n     every one thinks, and from what reason every one thinks.\"\n     --Cicero, De Offic:, i. 41.]\n\nI every day hear fools say things that are not foolish: they say a good\nthing; let us examine how far they understand it, whence they have it,\nand what they mean by it.  We help them to make use of this fine\nexpression, of this fine sentence, which is none of theirs; they only\nhave it in keeping; they have bolted it out at a venture; we place it for\nthem in credit and esteem.  You lend them your hand.  To what purpose?\nthey do not think themselves obliged to you for it, and become more inept\nstill.  Don't help them; let them alone; they will handle the matter like\npeople who are afraid of burning their fingers; they dare change neither\nits seat nor light, nor break into it; shake it never so little, it slips\nthrough their fingers; they give it up, be it never so strong or fair\nthey are fine weapons, but ill hafted: How many times have I seen the\nexperience of this?  Now, if you come to explain anything to them, and to\nconfirm them, they catch at it, and presently rob you of the advantage of\nyour interpretation; \"It was what I was about to say; it was just my\nidea; if I did not express it so, it was for want of language.\"  Mere\nwind!  Malice itself must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance.\nThe dogma of Hegesias, \"that we are neither to hate nor accuse, but\ninstruct,\" is correct elsewhere; but here 'tis injustice and inhumanity\nto relieve and set him right who stands in no need on't, and is the worse\nfor't.  I love to let them step deeper into the mire; and so deep, that,\nif it be possible, they may at last discern their error.\n\nFolly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition; and what\nCyrus answered to him, who importuned him to harangue his army, upon the\npoint of battle, \"that men do not become valiant and warlike upon a\nsudden, by a fine oration, no more than a man becomes a good musician by\nhearing a fine song,\" may properly be said of such an admonition as this.\nThese are apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand, by a long and\ncontinued education.  We owe this care and this assiduity of correction\nand instruction to our own people; but to go preach to the first\npasser-by, and to become tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we\nmeet, is a thing that I abhor.  I rarely do it, even in private\nconversation, and rather give up the whole thing than proceed to these\ninitiatory and school instructions; my humour is unfit either to speak or\nwrite for beginners; but for things that are said in common discourse, or\namongst other things, I never oppose them either by word or sign, how\nfalse or absurd soever.\n\nAs to the rest, nothing vexes me so much in folly as that it is more\nsatisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be.  'Tis\nunfortunate that prudence forbids us to satisfy and trust ourselves,\nand always dismisses us timorous and discontented; whereas obstinacy and\ntemerity fill those who are possessed with them with joy and assurance.\n'Tis for the most ignorant to look at other men over the shoulder, always\nreturning from the combat full of joy and triumph.  And moreover, for the\nmost part, this arrogance of speech and gaiety of countenance gives them\nthe better of it in the opinion of the audience, which is commonly weak\nand incapable of well judging and discerning the real advantage.\nObstinacy of opinion and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly;\nis there anything so assured, resolute, disdainful, contemplative,\nserious and grave as the ass?\n\nMay we not include under the title of conference and communication the\nquick and sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst\nfriends, pleasantly and wittily jesting and rallying with one another?\n'Tis an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, and\nwhich, if it be not so tense and serious as the other I spoke of but now,\nis, as Lycurgus thought, no less smart and ingenious, nor of less\nutility.  For my part, I contribute to it more liberty than wit, and have\ntherein more of luck than invention; but I am perfect in suffering, for I\nendure a retaliation that is not only tart, but indiscreet to boot,\nwithout being moved at all; and whoever attacks me, if I have not a brisk\nanswer immediately ready, I do not study to pursue the point with a\ntedious and impertinent contest, bordering upon obstinacy, but let it\npass, and hanging down cheerfully my ears, defer my revenge to another\nand better time: there is no merchant that always gains: Most men change\ntheir countenance and their voice where their wits fail, and by an\nunseasonable anger, instead of revenging themselves, accuse at once their\nown folly and impatience.  In this jollity, we sometimes pinch the secret\nstrings of our imperfections which, at another and graver time, we cannot\ntouch without offence, and so profitably give one another a hint of our\ndefects.  There are other jeux de main,--[practical jokes]--rude and\nindiscreet, after the French manner, that I mortally hate; my skin is\nvery tender and sensible: I have in my time seen two princes of the blood\nburied upon that very account.  'Tis unhandsome to fight in play.  As to\nthe rest, when I have a mind to judge of any one, I ask him how far he is\ncontented with himself; to what degree his speaking or his work pleases\nhim.  I will none of these fine excuses, \"I did it only in sport,\n\n               'Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud.'\n\n          [\"That work was taken from the anvil half finished.\"\n          --Ovid, Trist., i. 6, 29.]\n\nI was not an hour about it: I have never looked at it since.\"  Well,\nthen, say I, lay these aside, and give me a perfect one, such as you\nwould be measured by.  And then, what do you think is the best thing in\nyour work? is it this part or that? is it grace or the matter, the\ninvention, the judgment, or the learning?  For I find that men are,\ncommonly, as wide of the mark in judging of their own works, as of those\nof others; not only by reason of the kindness they have for them, but for\nwant of capacity to know and distinguish them: the work, by its own force\nand fortune, may second the workman, and sometimes outstrip him, beyond\nhis invention and knowledge.  For my part, I judge of the value of other\nmen's works more obscurely than of my own; and place the Essays, now\nhigh, or low, with great doubt and inconstancy.  There are several books\nthat are useful upon the account of their subjects, from which the author\nderives no praise; and good books, as well as good works, that shame the\nworkman.  I may write the manner of our feasts, and the fashion of our\nclothes, and may write them ill; I may publish the edicts of my time, and\nthe letters of princes that pass from hand to hand; I may make an\nabridgment of a good book (and every abridgment of a good book is a\nfoolish abridgment), which book shall come to be lost; and so on:\nposterity will derive a singular utility from such compositions: but what\nhonour shall I have unless by great good fortune?  Most part of the\nfamous books are of this condition.\n\nWhen I read Philip de Commines, doubtless a very good author, several\nyears ago, I there took notice of this for no vulgar saying, \"That a man\nmust have a care not to do his master so great service, that at last he\nwill not know how to give him his just reward\"; but I ought to commend\nthe invention, not him, because I met with it in Tacitus, not long since:\n\n         \"Beneficia ea usque lxta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse;\n          ubi multum antevenere, pro gratis odium redditur;\"\n\n     [\"Benefits are so far acceptable as they appear to be capable of\n     recompense; where they much exceed that point, hatred is returned\n     instead of thanks.\"--Tacitus, Annal., iv. 18.]\n\nand Seneca vigorously says:\n\n                    \"Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere,\n                    non vult esse cui reddat:\"\n\n     [\"For he who thinks it a shame not to requite, does not wish to\n     have the man live to whom he owes return.\"--Seneca, Ep., 81.]\n\nQ. Cicero says with less directness.:\n\n                   \"Qui se non putat satisfacere,\n                    amicus esse nullo modo potest.\"\n\n     [\"Who thinks himself behind in obligation, can by no\n     means be a friend.\"--Q. Cicero, De Petitione Consul, c. 9.]\n\nThe subject, according to what it is, may make a man looked upon as\nlearned and of good memory; but to judge in him the parts that are most\nhis own and the most worthy, the vigour and beauty of his soul, one must\nfirst know what is his own and what is not; and in that which is not his\nown, how much we are obliged to him for the choice, disposition,\nornament, and language he has there presented us with.  What if he has\nborrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it often falls out?  We, who\nare little read in books, are in this strait, that when we meet with a\nhigh fancy in some new poet, or some strong argument in a preacher, we\ndare not, nevertheless, commend it till we have first informed ourselves,\nthrough some learned man, if it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some\nother; until that I always stand upon my guard.\n\nI have lately been reading the history of Tacitus quite through, without\ninterrupting it with anything else (which but seldom happens with me, it\nbeing twenty years since I have kept to any one book an hour together),\nand I did it at the instance of a gentleman for whom France has a great\nesteem, as well for his own particular worth, as upon the account of a\nconstant form of capacity and virtue which runs through a great many\nbrothers of them.  I do not know any author in a public narrative who\nmixes so much consideration of manners and particular inclinations: and I\nam of a quite contrary opinion to him, holding that, having especially to\nfollow the lives of the emperors of his time, so various and extreme in\nall sorts of forms, so many notable actions as their cruelty especially\nproduced in their subjects, he had a stronger and more attractive matter\nto treat of than if he had had to describe battles and universal\ncommotions; so that I often find him sterile, running over those brave\ndeaths as if he feared to trouble us with their multitude and length.\nThis form of history is by much the most useful; public movements depend\nmost upon the conduct of fortune, private ones upon our own.  'Tis rather\na judgment than a narration of history; there are in it more precepts\nthan stories: it is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn;\n'tis full of sententious opinions, right or wrong; 'tis a nursery of\nethic and politic discourses, for the use and ornament of those who have\nany place in the government of the world.  He always argues by strong and\nsolid reasons, after a pointed and subtle manner, according to the\naffected style of that age, which was so in love with an inflated manner,\nthat where point and subtlety were wanting in things it supplied these\nwith lofty and swelling words.  'Tis not much unlike the style of Seneca:\nI look upon Tacitus as more sinewy, and Seneca as more sharp.  His pen\nseems most proper for a troubled and sick state, as ours at present is;\nyou would often say that he paints and pinches us.\n\nThey who doubt his good faith sufficiently accuse themselves of being his\nenemy upon some other account.  His opinions are sound, and lean to the\nright side in the Roman affairs.  And yet I am angry at him for judging\nmore severely of Pompey than consists with the opinion of those worthy\nmen who lived in the same time, and had dealings with him; and to have\nreputed him on a par with Marius and Sylla, excepting that he was more\nclose.  Other writers have not acquitted his intention in the government\nof affairs from ambition and revenge; and even his friends were afraid\nthat victory would have transported him beyond the bounds of reason, but\nnot to so immeasurable a degree as theirs; nothing in his life threatened\nsuch express cruelty and tyranny.  Neither ought we to set suspicion\nagainst evidence; and therefore I do not believe Plutarch in this matter.\nThat his narrations were genuine and straightforward may, perhaps, be\nargued from this very thing, that they do not always apply to the\nconclusions of his judgments, which he follows according to the bias he\nhas taken, very often beyond the matter he presents us withal, which he\nhas not deigned to alter in the least degree.  He needs no excuse for\nhaving approved the religion of his time, according as the laws enjoined,\nand to have been ignorant of the true; this was his misfortune, not his\nfault.\n\nI have principally considered his judgment, and am not very well\nsatisfied therewith throughout; as these words in the letter that\nTiberius, old and sick, sent to the senate. \"What shall I write to you,\nsirs, or how should I write to you, or what should I not write to you at\nthis time?  May the gods and goddesses lay a worse punishment upon me\nthan I am every day tormented with, if I know!\"  I do not see why he\nshould so positively apply them to a sharp remorse that tormented the\nconscience of Tiberius; at least, when I was in the same condition, I\nperceived no such thing.\n\nAnd this also seemed to me a little mean in him that, having to say that\nhe had borne an honourable office in Rome, he excuses himself that he\ndoes not say it out of ostentation; this seems, I say, mean for such a\nsoul as his; for not to speak roundly of a man's self implies some want\nof courage; a man of solid and lofty judgment, who judges soundly and\nsurely, makes use of his own example upon all occasions, as well as those\nof others; and gives evidence as freely of himself as of a third person.\nWe are to pass by these common rules of civility, in favour of truth and\nliberty.  I dare not only speak of myself, but to speak only of myself:\nwhen I write of anything else, I miss my way and wander from my subject.\nI am not so indiscreetly enamoured of myself, so wholly mixed up with,\nand bound to myself, that I cannot distinguish and consider myself apart,\nas I do a neighbour or a tree: 'tis equally a fault not to discern how\nfar a man's worth extends, and to say more than a man discovers in\nhimself.  We owe more love to God than to ourselves, and know Him less;\nand yet speak of Him as much as we will.\n\nIf the writings of Tacitus indicate anything true of his qualities, he\nwas a great personage, upright and bold, not of a superstitious but of a\nphilosophical and generous virtue.  One may think him bold in his\nrelations; as where he tells us, that a soldier carrying a burden of\nwood, his hands were so frozen and so stuck to the load that they there\nremained closed and dead, being severed from his arms.  I always in such\nthings bow to the authority of so great witnesses.\n\nWhat also he says, that Vespasian, \"by the favour of the god Serapis,\ncured a blind woman at Alexandria by anointing her eyes with his spittle,\nand I know not what other miracle,\" he says by the example and duty of\nall his good historians.  They record all events of importance; and\namongst public incidents are the popular rumours and opinions.  'Tis\ntheir part to relate common beliefs, not to regulate them: that part\nconcerns divines and philosophers, directors of consciences; and\ntherefore it was that this companion of his, and a great man like\nhimself, very wisely said:\n\n     \"Equidem plura transcribo, quam credo: nam nec affirmare\n     sustineo, de quibus dubito, nec subducere quae accepi;\"\n\n     [\"Truly, I set down more things than I believe, for I can neither\n     affirm things whereof I doubt, nor suppress what I have heard.\"\n     --Quintus Curtius, ix.]\n\nand this other:\n\n               \"Haec neque affirmare neque refellere operae\n               pretium est; famae rerum standum est.\"\n\n     [\"'Tis neither worth the while to affirm or to refute these things;\n     we must stand to report\"--Livy, i., Praef., and viii. 6.]\n\nAnd writing in an age wherein the belief of prodigies began to decline,\nhe says he would not, nevertheless, forbear to insert in his Annals, and\nto give a relation of things received by so many worthy men, and with so\ngreat reverence of antiquity; 'tis very well said.  Let them deliver to\nus history, more as they receive it than as they believe it.  I, who am\nmonarch of the matter whereof I treat, and who am accountable to none, do\nnot, nevertheless, always believe myself; I often hazard sallies of my\nown wit, wherein I very much suspect myself, and certain verbal quibbles,\nat which I shake my ears; but I let them go at a venture.  I see that\nothers get reputation by such things: 'tis not for me alone to judge.  I\npresent myself standing and lying, before and behind, my right side and\nmy left, and, in all my natural postures.  Wits, though equal in force,\nare not always equal in taste and application.\n\nThis is what my memory presents to me in gross, and with uncertainty\nenough; all judgments in gross are weak and imperfect.\n\n\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     A hundred more escape us than ever come to our knowledge\n     A man must have courage to fear\n     A man never speaks of himself without loss\n     A man's accusations of himself are always believed\n     Agitation has usurped the place of reason\n     All judgments in gross are weak and imperfect\n     Any argument if it  be carried on with method\n     Apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand\n     Arrogant ignorance\n     Avoid all magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten\n     Being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded\n     Defer my revenge to another and better time\n     Desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled\n     Detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us\n     Disdainful, contemplative, serious and grave as the ass\n     Do not, nevertheless, always believe myself\n     Events are a very poor testimony of our worth and parts.\n     Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment\n     Fault not to discern how far a man's worth extends\n     Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition\n     Folly satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be\n     Folly than to be moved and angry at the follies of the world\n     Give us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it\n     I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish\n     I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it\n     I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed\n     I love stout expressions amongst gentle men\n     I was too frightened to be ill\n     If it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some other\n     Ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it.\n     It is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn\n     \"It was what I was about to say; it was just my idea,\"\n     Judge by justice, and choose men by reason\n     Knock you down with the authority of their experience\n     Learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds\n     Liberality at the expense of others\n     Malice must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance\n     Man must have a care not to do his master so great service\n     Mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations\n     Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency\n     My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners\n     My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are\n     Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd\n     New World: sold it opinions and our arts at a very dear rate\n     Obstinancy and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly\n     One must first know what is his own and what is not\n     Our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation\n     Passion has already confounded his judgment\n     Pinch the secret strings of our imperfections\n     Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play\n     Presumptive knowledge by silence\n     Silent mien procured the credit of prudence and capacity\n     Spectators can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure\n     Study of books is a languishing and feeble motion\n     The cause of truth ought to be the common cause\n     The event often justifies a very foolish conduct\n     The ignorant return from the combat full of joy and triumph\n     The very name Liberality sounds of Liberty.\n     There are some upon whom their rich clothes weep\n     There is no merchant that always gains\n     There is nothing single and rare in respect of nature\n     They have heard, they have seen, they have done so and so\n     They have not the courage to suffer themselves to be corrected\n     Tis impossible to deal fairly with a fool\n     To fret and vex at folly, as I do, is folly itself\n     Transferring of money from the right owners to strangers\n     Tutor to the ignorance and folly of the first we meet\n     Tyrannic sourness not to endure a form contrary to one's own\n     Universal judgments that I see so common, signify nothing\n     \"What he laughed at, being alone?\"--\"That I do laugh alone,\"\n     We are not to judge of counsels by events\n     We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him\n     We neither see far forward nor far backward\n     Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be some great thing\n     Who has once been a very fool, will never after be very wise\n     Wide of the mark in judging of their own works\n     Wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise","title":"Essays of Michel de Montaigne \u2014 Volume 16","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":21554}