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If All Men Were Wise
But, O you gods, "shall I speak or hold my tongue?" But why
should I be silent in a thing that is more true than truth itself?
However it might not be amiss perhaps in so great an affair to call
forth the Muses from Helicon, since the poets so often invoke them
upon every foolish occasion. Be present then awhile, and assist me,
you daughters of Jupiter, while I make it out that there is no way
to that so much famed wisdom, nor access to that fortress as they call
it of happiness, but under the banner of Folly. And first 'tis
agreed of all hands that our passions belong to Folly; inasmuch as
we judge a wise man from a fool by this, that the one is ordered by
them, the other by reason; and therefore the Stoics remove from a wise
man all disturbances of mind as so many diseases. But these passions
do not only the office of a tutor to such as are making towards the
port of wisdom, but are in every exercise of virtue as it were spurs
and incentives, nay and encouragers to well doing: which though that
great Stoic Seneca most strongly denies, and takes from a wise man all
affections whatever, yet in doing that he leaves him not so much as
a man but rather a new kind of god that was never yet nor ever like to
be. Nay, to speak plainer, he sets up a stony semblance of a man, void
of all sense and common feeling of humanity. And much good to them
with this wise man of theirs; let them enjoy him to themselves, love
him without competitors, and live with him in Plato's commonwealth,
the country of ideas, or Tantalus' orchards.
For who would not shun and startle at such a man, as at some
unnatural accident or spirit? A man dead to all sense of nature and
common affections, and no more moved with love or pity than if he were
a flint or rock; whose censure nothing escapes; that commits no errors
himself, but has a lynx's eyes upon others; measures everything by
an exact line, and forgives nothing; pleases himself with himself
only; the only rich, the only wise, the only free man, and only
king; in brief, the only man that is everything, but in his own single
judgment only; that cares not for the friendship of any man, being
himself a friend to no man; makes no doubt to make the gods stoop to
him, and condemns and laughs at the whole actions of our life?
And yet such a beast is this their perfect wise man. But tell me
pray, if the thing were to be carried by most voices, what city
would choose him for its governor, or what army desire him for their
general? What woman would have such a husband, what goodfellow such
a guest, or what servant would either wish or endure such a master?
Nay, who had not rather have one of the middle sort of fools, who,
being a fool himself, may the better know how to command or obey
fools; and who though he please his like, 'tis yet the greater number;
one that is kind to his wife, merry among his friends, a boon
companion, and easy to be lived with; and lastly one that thinks
nothing of humanity should be a stranger to him? But I am weary of
this wise man, and therefore I'll proceed to some other advantages.
Go to then. Suppose a man in some lofty high tower, and that he
could look round him, as the poets say Jupiter was now and then
wont. To how many misfortunes would he find the life of man subject?
How miserable, to say no worse, our birth, how difficult our
education; to how many wrongs our childhood exposed, to what pains our
youth; how unsupportable our old age, and grievous our unavoidable
death? As also what troops of diseases beset us, how many casualties
hang over our heads, how many troubles invade us, and how little there
is that is not steeped in gall? To say nothing of those evils one
man brings upon another, as poverty, imprisonment, infamy, dishonesty,
racks, snares, treachery, reproaches, actions, deceits- but I'm got
into as endless a work as numbering the sands- for what offenses
mankind have deserved these things, or what angry god compelled them
to be born into such miseries is not my present business. Yet he
that shall diligently examine it with himself, would he not, think
you, approve the example of the Milesian virgins and kill himself? But
who are they that for no other reason but that they were weary of life
have hastened their own fate? Were they not the next neighbors to
wisdom? among whom, to say nothing of Diogenes, Xenocrates, Cato,
Cassius, Brutus, that wise man Chiron, being offered immortality,
chose rather to die than be troubled with the same thing always.
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