"literature, of that branch of literature, I mean, "which enables us to discover the infinity of "things, the immensity of nature, the heavens, the "earth, and the seas: this is that branch which "has taught us religion, moderation, magnani"mity, and that has rescued our soul from obscurity, to make her see all things above and below, "first and last, and between both; it is this that "furnishes us wherewith to live well and happily, "and guides us to pass our lives without displeasure, and without offence."* Would not one think he was describing the condition of the ever-living and almighty God? But, in fact, there are a thousand poor women, in the country villages, whose lives have been more regular, more agreeable and uniform than his : -- Deus ille fuit Deus, inclyte Memmi, These were fine pompous words; but a very slight accident reduced the understanding of this mant to a worse state than that of the meanest shepherd, notwithstanding this his preceptor God and his divine wisdom. Of the same impudent stamp is that preface to Democritus's book, "I am going to treat of *Cic. Tusc. Quæst. lib. i. cap. 26. + Lucret. lib. v. ver. 8, &c. This was Lucretius, who, in the verses preceding this period, speaks so pompously of Epicurus and his doctrine: for a love-potion, that was given him either by his wife or his mistress, so much disturbed his reason, that the violence of his disorder only afforded him a few lucid intervals, which he employed in composinghis book, and at last made him kill himself. Eusebius's Chronicon. "all things."* And that foolish title, which Aris totle gives us, "Of the mortal gods," and that opinion of Chrysippus, that Dion was as virtuous as God. And my Seneca says, that God gave him life, but that it was of himself to live well; which is of a piece with that other assertion,§ In virtute verè gloriamur, quod non contigeret, si id donum à deo, non à nobis haberemus: "We truly glory in our "virtue, which would not be the case if it was given us by God, and not of ourselves." This is also from Seneca,|| that the wise man has fortitude equal with God, but attended with human frailty, wherein he surmounts him. There is nothing so common as to meet with passages of so much presumption. There is not one of us who would be so much offended at being placed on a par with God, as to find himself undervalued by being levelled to the rank of the other animals s; SO much more jealous are we of our own interest than of that of our Creator. But we must trample this foolish vanity under foot, and boldly shake the ridiculous foundations on which these false opinions are founded. So long as man shall be of opinion that he has any means or power of his own, he will never acknowledge what he owes to his maker. "He will reckon his chickens before they are "hatched," as the saying is; we must therefore strip him to his shirt. Let us now see some noble effects of the Stoic philosophy. Possidonius, being tormented with a disease so painful, that it made him twist his arm "Qui ita sit ausus ordiri hæc loquor de universis nihil excipit de quo non profitetur : quid enim esse potest extra universa?" Cic. Acad. Quæst. lib. ii. cap. 23. + Apud Ciceronem de Finibus Bon. et Mal. lib. ii. cap. 13. “Cy"renaici philosophi non viderunt, ut ad cursum, equum; ad aran"dum bovem; ad indagandum canem; sic hominem ad duas res, "ut ait Aristoteles. intelligendum et agendum, esse natum, quasi "mortalem deum." Plutarch, of the common conceptions of the Stoics, chap. 30. and gnash his teeth, made a jest of the pain by crying out against it, "Thou dost thy worst to a fine purpose: for I will not confess thou art an evil."* He has the same sense of feeling as my footman, but he vapours, because he restrains his tongue at least within the laws of his sect.t Re succumbere non oportebat verbis gloriantem: "As he talked so big, "it did not become him to shrink." Carneadest visiting Arcesilaus, whom he found ill of the gout, was going away very sorry to see him in that condition, when Arcesilaus called him back, and pointing" both to his feet and his breast, said to him, "There's "nothing that affects these, touches this." This was said with a little better grace than the other, for he had a feeling of his distemper, and showed that he would be glad to be rid of it. But, however, he was heart-whole, and not cast down by it. The other continued obstinate, but, I fear, rather in words than in reality. And Dionysius Heracleotes, being afflicted with a vehement pain in his eyes, was obliged to recede from his Stoical resolutions. § rance pre those of But though knowledge should have the effect, as The effects they say, of blunting the point or abating the seve- of ignority of the misfortunes which attend us, what does ferable to it that ignorance cannot perform in a more simple knowand clear manner? Pyrrho the philosopher, when in ledge. danger of being shipwrecked in a great storm at sea, proposed no other example for the imitation of those that were with him, but a hog that was on board, which discovered no fear at all in the storm. Philosophy, when it has said all it can, refers us to the examples of a wrestler and a muleteer, in which class of persons we commonly observe much less ap *Cic. Tusc. Quæst. lib. xi. cap. 25. + Id. cap. 13. Cicero informs us, that Carneades was very intimate with Epicurus; and, by consequence, this cannot be he who founded the New Academy; for Epicurus was dead about sixty years before Carneades, the founder of the New Academy, was born. Cicero de Finibus Bon. et Mal. lib. v. cap. 31. Id. ibid. Cicero says elsewhere, that this philosopher, having a disorder in his kidneys, exclaimed aloud, that the notion which he had before conceived of pain was false. A man's acknow of the weakness prehension of death, pains, and other inconveniences, and more constancy than ever knowledge furnished any person with, who was not born and prepared to suffer them of himself, by natural habit. Whence proceeds it that we make incisions, and cut the tender limbs of an infant, and those of a horse, with less resistance than those of our own, but from ignorance? How many persons have been made sick by the mere force of imagination? We commonly see persons that bleed, purge, and take physic to cure themselves of diseases, which only affect them in opinion. When we are in want of real infirmities, knowledge supplies us from its store. That colour, that complexion, portend some defluxion or catarrh: this hot season threatens us with a fever. That crossing of the line of life, in the palm of your left-hand, warns you of some remarkable indisposition approaching: in short it makes a direct attack upon life itself; that sprightliness and juvenile vigour cannot last long: there must be some blood taken away, and you must be brought low, lest such a florid state of health turn to your prejudice. Compare the life of a man who is a slave to such imaginations to that of the labouring man, who is governed by his natural appetite, measuring things only as they appear to him at the present, without knowledge and without prognostication; who feels no pain or sickness but when he is really tormented or diseased; whereas the other has often the stone in his mind before he has it in his kidneys: as if it were not time enough to suffer the evil when it comes, he anticipates it in fancy and runs to meet it. What I say of medicine may be generally exemledgement plified in all other sciences. From thence is derived that ancient opinion of the philosophers, who of his judg-placed the sovereign good in knowing the weakness. ment the of our judgment. My ignorance affords me as much good, ac- room for hope as fear, and having no other regimen cording to for my health, but the examples of others, and of phers. events which I see elsewhere on the like occasions, sovereign some philo I I find some of all sorts, and rely upon those which are by the comparison most favourable to me. receive health with open arms, free, full, and entire; and enjoy it with a keener appetite, as it more seldom accompanies me now than formerly; so far am I from disturbing its repose and sweet relish by the bitterness of a new and constrained form of life. body and the agita The beasts show us plainly how much our diseases Distemper's are owing to the perturbation of our minds. What both of the we are told of the people in Brasil, that they die mind merely of old age, and that this is attributed to the caused by serenity and tranquillity of the air they live in; Ition of our ascribe it rather to the serenity and tranquillity of souls. their souls, free from all passion, thought, or employment, that is laborious or unpleasant; as people that pass their lives in an admirable simplicity and igno, rance, without learning, without law, without king, or any manner of religion. And whence comes that which we know by experience, that the most stupid and unpolished boors are the strongest and the most desirable for amorous exploits, and that a muleteer is often better liked than a gentleman; if it be not that the agitation of the soul in the latter disturbs, breaks, and wearies his bodily strength, as it also generally tires and teases itself? What is it puts the soul besides itself, what more usually throws it into madness, but its own promptness, penetration, and activity, and, in short, its own power? From what is the most subtle folly derived but from the most subtle wisdom? As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health; so do the most surprising and the wildest frenzies from the rare and lively agitations of our souls; and there is but a hair's-breadth between them.* In the actions of madmen, we perceive how exactly their folly tallies with the most vigorous operations of our souls. Who does not know how indiscernable the difference is between folly with the gay * Great wits to madness, sure, are near allied, Dryden. |