promised mountains and miracles, saying, "He "could do this, and that, and I know not what ;" the second boasted as much of himself and more: when it came to Esop's turn, and that he was also asked, “What he could do?" "Nothing," said he, "for these two have taken up all before me; they "can do every thing." So has it happened in the school of philosophy. The pride of those who attributed a capacity for all things to human understanding, created in others, out of spite and emulation, this opinion, that it is capable of nothing. The one maintains the same extreme in ignorance as the others do in knowledge; so that it is undeniable, that man is immoderate throughout, and can never stop but from necessity, and the want of ability to proceed farther.

We admire the dis

courses of Socrates

respect to

tion, with

true value

CHAPTER XI.

Of Physiognomy.

ALMOST all the the opinions we have are derived from authority, and taken upon trust; and it is not amiss. We could not choose worse than by out of pure ourselves in so weak an age. The representation of the public Socrates's discourses, which his friends have transapproba-mitted to us, we approve upon no other account, out dis- but merely the reverence to public approbation. It cerning the is not according to our knowledge; they are not after our way. If any thing of this kind should spring up now, few men would value them. We discern not the beauties otherwise than by certain features, touched up, and illustrated by art. Such as glide on in their own genuine simplicity, easily escape so gross a sight as ours: they have a delicate and concealed beauty, and it requires the clearest sight to discover so secret a light. Is not simplicity,

of them.

in the sense we accept it, cousin-german to folly, and a quality of reproach? Socrates makes his soul move by a natural and common motion. "A pea66 sant said this, a woman said that;" he never has any thing in his mouth, but carters, joiners, coblers, and masons. They are inductions and similitudes drawn from the most common and known actions of men; every one understands them. We would never have conceived the nobility and splendor of his admirable conceptions under so vile a form; we, I say, who think all things low and flat, that are not elevated by learning, and who discern no riches but in pomp and show. This world is only formed for ostentation. Men are only puffed up with wind, and are bandied to and fro like tennis-balls. This man proposed to himself no vain fancies; his design was to furnish us with precepts and things that are really and most immediately of service to life:

Servare modum, finemque tenere,

Naturamque sequi.*

To keep a mean, his end still to observe,

And from the laws of nature ne'er to swerve.

He was also always one and the same, and raised himself not by starts, but by constitution, to the highest pitch of vigour; or to say better, he exalted nothing, but rather brought down and reduced all asperities and difficulties to their original and natural condition, and subjected their power: for in Cato it is most manifest, that this is a pace extended far above the common ways of men. In the brave exploits of his life, and in his death, we find him always mounted upon his managed horses. managed horses. Whereas this man always skims the ground, and with a gentle and ordinary pace, delivers the most useful discourses, and bears himself up through the most crabbed difficulties that could occur in the course of human life, even to death.

The cha

racter of Socrates, as it is

give

the most

the clearest

It has fallen out well, that the man most worthy to be known, and to be presented to the world for example, is he of whom we have the most certain knowledge; for he has been pried into by the most faithful and clear-sighted men that ever were. The testimonies evidence. we have of him are admirable both for their number and credit. It is a great thing that he was able so to order the pure imaginations of a child, that without altering or wresting them, he has thereby produced the most beautiful effects of a human soul. He presents it neither elevated nor rich, he only represents it sound, but certainly with a brisk and pure health. By these common and natural springs, by these vulgar and ordinary fancies, without being moved or provoked in the business, he drew up, not only the most regular, but the most high and vigorous beliefs, actions, and manners that ever were. It is he who brought again from heaven, where she lost time, human wisdom, to restore her to man, with whom her most just and greatest business lies. See him plead before his judges; do but observe by, what reasons he rouses his courage to the hazards of war; with what arguments he fortifies his patience against calumny, tyranny, death, and the perverseness of his wife: you will find nothing in all this borrowed from art and the sciences. The simplest may therefore discover their own means and power; it is impossible to retire farther, or to creep more low. He has done human nature a great favour in showing how much it can do of itself.

Man incapable of

moderation

regard to science.

We are all of us richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought even with up more to make use of what is another's than our own. Man can in nothing set bounds to his necessity. Of pleasure, wealth, and power, he grasps at more than he can hold; his greediness is incapable of moderation. And I find that, in the curiosity of knowing, he is the same; he cuts himself out more work than he can execute, and more than he needs to perform extending the utility of knowledge as

far as the matter. Ut omnium rerum, sic literarum
quoque, intemperantia laboramus:*
As of every

66

thing else, we are intemperate in the pursuit of learning." Tacitus had reason to commend the mother of Agricola,† for having restrained her son in his too violent appetite for learning.

ous acqui

is of abso

nature.

It is a good, if duly considered, which has in it, Learning is as the other goods of men have, a great deal of va- a dangernity, and of proper and natural weakness, and which sition. costs very dear; the acquisition of it is more hazard-That which ous than that of all other sustenance. For in other lute use is things, what we have bought, we carry home in some in us by vessel, and there have liberty to examine the worth of it, how much and at what time we shall take it; but the sciences we can bestow into no other vessel than the soul; we swallow them in buying, and return from the market, either already infected, or amended. There are such sorts as only burden and clog us instead of nourishing; and moreover, some that, under colour of curing, poison us. I have been pleased, in places where I have been, to see men through devotion make a vow of ignorance as well as chastity, poverty, and penitence. It is as it were a gelding of our unruly appetites to blunt this curiosity that spurs us on to the study of books; and to deprive the soul of this voluptuous compla cency, that tickles us through our opinion of know. ledge. It is fully accomplishing the vow of poverty to add unto it that also of the mind. We need not be taught to live at our ease. Socrates tells us, that the way how to attain to it, and the manner how to use it, are in our power. All this sufficiency of ours, which exceeds the natural, is little better than superfluous and vain. It is much if it does not more encumber and plague us than do us good. Paucis opus est literis ad mentem bonam:"+"A man of "good disposition, has little need of learning." It

* Senec. ep. 106. Tacit. in the Life of Jul. Agricolæ, sect. 4 Senec. epist. 106.

Seneca's great ef

is a feverish excess of the mind; a turbulent and restless tool. Do but look into yourself, and you will find there such natural arguments against death, as are true, and the most proper to serve you in necessity. They are such as make a peasant, and an entire people die with as much constancy as a philosopher. Would I have died less cheerfully before I had read Cicero's Tusculanes? I believe not. And when I consider seriously, I perceive that my language is enriched indeed, but my courage little or nothing. It is just as nature forged it, and, in any conflict, only defends itself in a natural and ordinary way. Books have not so much served me for instruction as for exercise. What if learning, trying to arm us with new defences against natural inconveniences, has more imprinted in our fancies the weight and greatness of them, than its reasons and subtleties to secure us from them? They are subtleties indeed, with which it oft alarms us to little purpose. Do but observe, how many frivolous, and if nearly examined, how many immaterial arguments the most concise and the wisest authors scatter about one that is good. They are no other than quirks to deceive us. But as this may be with some profit, I I will sift them no farther. Enough of that sort are dispersed up and down, either by borrowing, or by imitation: therefore ought a man to take a little heed, not to call that force which is only civility, nor that solid which is only sharp, or that good which is only fair. Quæ magis gustata quam potata delectant: "Which more delight the palate than the "stomach." Every thing that flatters does not feed. Ubi non ingenii, sed animi negotium agitur :† "Where the question is not about improving the "wit, but the understanding."

To see the bustle that Seneca makes to fortify forts in pre- himself against death, to see him so sweat and pant paring for to harden and encourage himself, and bait so long

his death.