The Complete Essays (158 page)

[B] That is how they grow rotten and besotted,

Humani qualis simulator simius oris,
Quem puer arridens pretioso stamine serum
Velavit, nudasque nates ac terga reliquit,
Ludibrium mensis
.

[like an ape, that imitator of the human face, which a boy dresses up, for a laugh, in precious silken robes, leaving the cheeks of its backside bare to amuse the guests at table.]

It is the same for those who rule over us and give orders, who hold the world in their hands: it is not enough for them to have an ordinary intelligence, to be able to achieve what we can. They are far beneath us if they are not way above us. Since they promise more, they owe more too; that is why keeping silent is not, in their case, merely a courteous and grave demeanour; it is also more often a profitable and gainful one. For when Megabysus went to see Appelles in his studio, he long remained silent. But when he began to discourse on the works of art, he received this rude reprimand: ‘While you kept silent you appeared to be a great Somebody because of your chains-of-office and your retinue, but now we have heard you talk the very apprentices in my workshop despise you.’
³⁰
Those magnificent decorations, that grand estate would not tolerate ordinary plebeian ignorance in him, nor inappropriate comments on paintings: he should have maintained that outward presumed connoisseurship. For how many men in my time has a cold, taciturn mien served their silly souls as signs of wisdom and ability!

Of necessity dignities and offices are bestowed more by fortune than by merit: you often do wrong to blame kings for that. On the contrary, it is a wonder that they have such good luck, enjoying as they do so few ways of finding out.

[C]
Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos
,
[For a prince, the chief merit is to know his subjects,]
³¹

[B] for Nature has not given them eyes which can extend over so many peoples, distinguishing pre-eminence and seeing into our bosoms, where is lodged the knowledge of our will and of our better qualities. They have to select us by fumbling guesses: by our family, our wealth, our learning and the voice of the people – the feeblest of arguments. Anyone who could discover the means by which men could be justly judged and reasonably chosen would, at a stroke, establish a perfect form of commonwealth.

‘Yes. But he brought this great matter to a successful conclusion.’ – That means something, but not enough; for we rightly accept the maxim which says that plans must not be judged by results. [C] The Carthaginians punished bad counsels in their captains even when they were put right by a happy outcome. And the Roman people often refused to mark great and beneficial victories because the qualities of leadership of the commander were inferior to his good luck. [B] In this world’s activities we often notice that Fortune rivals Virtue: she shows us what power she has over everything and delights in striking down our presumption by making the incompetent lucky since she cannot make them wise. She loves to interfere, favouring those performances whose course has been entirely her own. That is why we can see, every day, the simplest among us bringing the greatest public and private tasks to successful conclusions.

Siramnes the Persian replied to those who were amazed that his enterprises turned out so badly, seeing that his projects were so wise, by saying that he alone was master of his projects while Fortune was mistress of the outcome of his enterprises: they too could make the same reply to explain the opposite tendency.
³²

Most of this world’s events happen by themselves:

Fata viam inveniunt
.
[The Fates find a way.]
³³

The outcome often lends authority to the most inept leadership. Our intervention is virtually no more than a habit, the result of tradition and example rather than of reason. I was once astounded by the greatness of a venture; I then learnt from those who had brought it to a successful
conclusion what their motives were and what methods they used: I found nothing but ordinary notions.

Indeed the most ordinary usual ones are also perhaps the most reliable and the most suitable in practice if not for show. What if the most lowly reasons are the most solidly based? What if the [C] most humble, most lax and [B] best-trodden ones are the most suited to our concerns? If we are to safeguard the authority of the Privy Council we do not need laymen participating in it nor seeing further than the first obstacle. If we want to maintain its reputation it must be taken on trust, as a whole.

My thought sketches out the matter for a while and dwells lightly on the first aspects of it: then I usually leave the principal thrust of the task to heaven.

Permitte divis cætera
.

[Entrust the rest to the gods.]

To my mind Good Luck and Bad Luck are two sovereign powers. There is no wisdom in thinking that the role of Fortune can be played by human wisdom. What he undertakes is vain if a man should presume to embrace both causes and consequences and to lead the progress of his action by the hand; and it is especially vain in counsels of war. Never were there [C] more military circumspection and prudence than I sometimes see practised among us [B]:
³⁴
perhaps we fear that we shall get lost en route, and therefore keep ourselves in reserve for the climax in the final act!

I will go on to say that our very wisdom and mature reflections are for the most part led by chance. My will and my reasoning are stirred this way and that. And many of their movements govern themselves without me. My reason is daily subject to incitements and agitations [C] which are due to chance:

[B]
Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus
Nunc alios, alios dum nubila ventus agebat,
Concipiunt
.

[Their minds’ ideas are ever turning round; the emotions in their breasts are driven hither and thither like clouds before the wind.]
³⁵

Look and see who wield most power in our cities; who do their jobs best. You will find that they are usually the least clever. There have been cases when women, children and lunatics have ruled their states equally as well as the most talented princes. [C] Coarse men more usually succeed in such things, says Thucydides, better than the subtle ones do.
³⁶
[B] We ascribe the deeds of their good fortune to their wisdom.

[C]
Ut quisque fortuna utitur
Ita præcellet, atque exinde sapere ilium omnes dicimus
.

[Each outstanding man is raised by his good fortune; we then say that he is clever.]

[B] That is why I insist that, in all our activities, their outcomes provide meagre testimony of our worth and ability.

Now I was just about to say that it merely suffices for us to see a man raised to great dignity; even though we knew him three days before to be a negligible man, there seeps into our opinions, unawares, a notion of greatness, of talents, and we convince ourselves that by growing in style and reputation he has grown in merit. Our judgements of him are not based on his worth but (as is the case with the counters of an abacus) on the tokens of rank. Let his luck turn again, let him have a fall and be lost in the crowd again, then we all ask in wonder what had made him soar so high! ‘Is this the same man?’ we ask. ‘Did he not know more about it when he was up there? Are princes satisfied with so little? We were in good hands, indeed we were!’

That is something I have seen many times in my own days.

Why, even the mask of greatness which is staged in our plays affects us somewhat and deceives us. What I worship in kings is the crowd of their worshippers. Everything should bow and submit to our kings – except our intelligence. My reason was not made for bending and bowing, my knees were.

When Melanthius was asked how Dionysius’ tragedy appeared to him, ‘I never saw it,’ he replied. ‘It was obscured by the words!’ So, too, most of those who judge what the great have to say ought to answer: ‘I never heard his words: they were too much obscured by his dignity, grandeur and majesty.’
³⁷

One day, when Antisthenes urged the Athenians to command that donkeys be used, as their horses were, to plough their fields, he was told
that donkeys were not born for such a service. ‘That does not matter,’ he retorted. ‘It all depends on your issuing the order: for the most ignorant and incompetent men whom you put in command of your wars never fail to become suddenly most worthy of command, because it is you who employ them!’
³⁸

Related to this is the practice of so many people to sanctify the kings whom they have chosen from among themselves. They are not contented with honouring them: they need to worship them. The people of Mexico dare not look at the face of their king once they have completed the rites of his enthronement, but as though they had deified him by his royal state they make him swear not merely to maintain their religion, laws and liberties and to be valiant, just and debonair, he must also swear to cause the sun to run shining with its accustomed light, the clouds to break in due season, the rivers to flow in their courses and the earth to bring forth all things needful for his people.
³⁹

I am opposed to that widespread fashion and I most doubt a man’s ability when I see it accompanied by great rank and public acclaim. We should remember what it means to a man to be able to speak when he wants to, to choose the right moment, to break off the discussion or switch the subject with the authority of a master, to defend himself against objections with a shake of the head, a little smile or with silence, in front of courtiers who tremble with reverence and respect.

A monstrously rich man, when some trivial matter was being aired casually over dinner, joined in the discussion and began with these very words: ‘Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or a liar,’ and so on. You had better follow up that philosophical thrust with a dagger in your hand!

Here is another warning, which I find most useful: in debates and discussions we should not immediately be impressed by what we take to be a man’s own
bons mots
. Most men are rich with other men’s abilities. It may well be that such-and-such a man makes a fine remark, a good reply or a pithy saying, advancing it without realizing its power. [C] (That we do not grasp everything we borrow can doubtless be proved from my own case.) [B] We should not always give way, no matter what beauty or truth it may have. We should either seriously attack it or else, under pretence of not understanding it, retreat a little so as to probe it thoroughly and to discover how it is lodged in its author. We may be helping his
sword-thrust to carry beyond his reach, running on to it ourselves. There have been times when, pressed by necessity in the duel of words, I have made counter-attacks which struck home more than I ever hoped or expected. I was counting their number: they were accepted for their weight.

When I am disputing with a man of strong arguments I enjoy anticipating his conclusions; I save him the bother of explaining himself; I make an assay at forestalling his ideas while they are still unfinished and being formed (the order and stretch of his intelligence warn me and threaten me from afar). Similarly, with those others I mentioned I do quite the opposite: we should suppose nothing, understand nothing but what they explain. If their judgements are apposite but expressed in universals – ‘This is good: that is bad’ – find out whether it is luck which makes them apposite. [C] Make them circumscribe and restrict their verdict a little: ‘Why is it good? How is it good?’ Those universal judgements (which I find so common) say nothing. They are like those who greet people as a mass or a crowd: those who have genuine knowledge of them greet them by name and distinguish them as individuals.
⁴⁰
But it is a chancy business. Which explains why, on average more than once a day, I have seen men with ill-founded minds trying to act clever by showing me some beautiful detail in the book they are reading, but choosing so badly the point on which they fix their admiration that instead of revealing the excellence of their author they reveal their own ignorance.

When you have just listened to a whole page of Virgil you can safely exclaim, ‘Now that is beautiful!’ The cunning ones escape that way. But to undertake to go back over the detail of a good author, to try to indicate with precise and selected examples where he surpasses himself and where he flies high by weighing his words and his locutions and his choice of materials one after another: not many try that.
‘Videndum est non modo quid quisque loquatur, sed etiam quid quisque sentiat, atque etiam qua de causa quisque sentiat.’
[We should not only examine what each one says, but what are his opinions and what grounds he has for holding them.]
⁴¹
Day after day I hear stupid people uttering words which are not stupid. [B] They say something good; let us discover how deeply they understand it and where they got hold of it. They do not own that fine saying or that fine reasoning, but we help them to use it. They are only looking after it. Perhaps they only produced it fortuitously, hesitantly: it is we who
give it credit and value. You are lending them a hand. But why? They feel no gratitude towards you for it and become all the more silly. Do not support them; let them go their own way: they will handle that material like a man who fears getting scalded: they dare not show it in a different light or context nor to deepen it. Give it the tiniest shaking and it slips away from them: then, strong and beautiful though it be, they surrender it to you. They have beautiful weapons, but the handles are loose! How often have I learnt that from experience!