The same applies to all other appetites. I maintain, therefore, that if ignorant simplicity can bring us to an absence of pain, then it brings us to a state which, given the human condition, is very blessedness.
[C] Yet we should not think of a simplicity so leaden as to be unable to taste anything. Crantor was right to attack ‘freedom from pain’ as conceived by Epicurus, insofar as it was built upon foundations so deep that pain could not even draw near to it or arise within it. I have no words of praise for a ‘freedom from pain’ which is neither possible nor desirable. I am pleased enough not to be ill but, if I am ill, I want to know; if you cut me open or cauterize me, I want to feel it. Truly, anyone who could uproot all knowledge of pain would equally eradicate all knowledge of pleasure and finally destroy Man: ‘Istud nihil dolere, non sine magna mercede contingit immanitatis in animo, stuporis in corpore’ [That ‘freedom from pain’ has a high price: cruelty in the soul, insensate dullness in the body]. For Man, ill can be good at times; it is not always right to flee pain, not always right to chase after pleasure.
[A] It greatly advances the honour of Ignorance that Learning has to throw us into her arms when powerless to stiffen our backs against the weight of our ills; she has to make terms, slipping the reins and giving us leave to seek refuge in the lap of Ignorance, finding under her protection a shelter from the blows and outrages of Fortune.
Learning instructs us to [C] withdraw our thoughts from the ills which beset us now and to occupy them by recalling the good times we have known; [A] to make use of the memory of past joys in order to console ourselves for present sorrows, or to call in the help of vanished happiness to set against the things which oppress us now – [C] ‘Levationes aegritudinum in avocatione a cogitanda molestia et revocatione ad contemplandas voluptates ponit’ [He found a way to lessen sorrows by summoning thoughts away from troubles and calling them back to gaze on pleasure] – [A] when Learning runs out of force, she turns to cunning; when strength of arm and body fails, she resorts to conjuring tricks and nimble footwork; if that is not what is meant, what does it mean? When any reasonable man, let alone a philosopher, feels in reality a blazing thirst brought on by a burning fever, can you buy him off with memories of the delights of Greek wine? [B] That would only make a bad bargain worse.
Che ricordarsi il ben doppia la noia.
[Recalling pleasure doubles pain.]
[A] Of a similar nature is that other counsel which Philosophy gives us: to keep only past pleasures in mind and to wipe off the sorrows we have known – as if we had the art of forgetfulness in our power. [C] Anyway, such advice makes us worse:
Suavis est laborum praeteritorum memoria.
[Sweet is the memory of toils now past.]
[A] Philosophy ought to arm me with weapons to fight against Fortune; she should stiffen my resolve to trample human adversities underfoot; how has she grown so weak as to have me bolting into burrows with such cowardly and stupid evasions? Memory reproduces what she wants, not what we choose. Indeed there is nothing which stamps anything so vividly on our memory as the desire not to remember it: the best way to impress anything on our souls and to make them stand guard over it, is to beg them to forget it.
– [C] The following is false: ‘Est situm in nobis, ut et adversa quasi perpetua oblivione obruamus, et secunda jucunde et suaviter meminerimus’ [There is within us a capacity for consigning misfortunes to total oblivion, while remembering favourable things with joy and delight].
The following is true: ‘Memini etiam quae nolo, oblivisci non possum quae volo’ [I remember things I do not want to remember and I cannot forget things I want to forget].129 –
[A] Whose advice have I just cited? Why, that of the man [C] ‘qui se unus sapientem profiteri sit ausus’ [who, alone, dared to say he was wise];
[A] Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes
Praestrinxit Stellas, exortus uti aetherius sol.
[who soared above human kind by his genius and who, like the Sun rising in heaven, obscured all the stars.]
Emptying and stripping memory is, surely, the true and proper road to ignorance. [C] ‘Iners malorum remedium ignorantia est’ [Ignorance is an artless remedy for our ills].130
[A] We find several similar precepts permitting us, when strong and lively Reason cannot suffice, to borrow the trivial pretences of the vulgar, provided that they make us happy or provide consolation. Those who cannot cure a wound are pleased with palliatives which deaden it. If philosophers could only find a way of adding order and constancy to a life which was maintained in joy and tranquillity by weakness and sickness of judgement, they would be prepared to accept it. I do not think they will deny me that.
Potare et spargere flores
Incipiam, patiarque vel inconsultus haberi!
[I may appear silly, but I am going to start drinking and strewing flowers about!]131
You would find several philosophers agreeing with Lycas: he was a man of very orderly habits, living quietly and peaceably at home; he failed in none of the duties he owed to family and strangers; he guarded himself effectively from harm; however, some defect in his senses led him to imprint a mad fantasy on his brain: he always thought he was in the theatre watching games, plays and the finest comedies in the world. Being cured of this corrupt humour, he nearly took his doctors to court to make them restore those sweet fantasies132 to him:
pol! me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis, ait, cui sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.
[‘You have killed me, my friends, not cured me,’ he said. ‘You have wrenched my pleasure from me and taken away by force that most delightful wandering of my mind.’]
Thrasilaus, son of Pythodorus, had a similar mad fantasy; he came to believe that all the ships sailing out of the port of Piraeus or coming in to dock there were working for him alone. When good fortune attended their voyages he rejoiced in it and welcomed them with delight. His brother Crito brought him to his senses, but he sorely missed his former condition, which had been full of happiness, not burdened by troubles.
A line of Ancient Greek poetry says ‘There is great convenience in not being too wise’: So does Ecclesiastes: ‘In much wisdom there is much sadness, and he that acquireth knowledge acquireth worry and travail.’
Philosophy in general agrees133 that there is an ultimate remedy to be prescribed for every kind of trouble: namely, ending our life if we find it intolerable. [C] ‘Placet? Pare. Non placet? Quacunque vis, exi.’ [All right? Then put up with it. Not all right? Then out you go, any way you like.] – ‘Pungit dolor? Vel fodiat sane. Si nudus es, da jugulum; sin tectus armis Vulcaniis, id est fortitudine, resiste.’ [Does it hurt? Is it excruciating? If you are defenceless, get your throat cut; if you are armed with the arms of Vulcan (that is, fortitude) then fight it!] As the Greeks said at their banquets: ‘Let him drink or be off!’ (‘Aut bibat, aut abeat!’) – That is particularly apt if you pronounce Cicero’s language like. Gascon, changing your ‘B’s to ‘V’s: Aut vivat- ‘Let him live…’
[A] Vivere si recte nescis, decede peritis;
Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti;
Tempus abire tibi est, ne potum largius aequo
Rideat et pulset lasciva decentius aetas.
[If you do not know how to live as you should, give way to those who do. You have played enough in bed; you have eaten enough, drunk enough: it is time to be off, lest you start to drink too much and find that pretty girls rightly laugh at you and push you away.]
But what does this consensus amount to, if not to a confession of powerlessness on the part of Philosophy? She sends us for protection not merely to ignorance but to insensibility, to a total lack of sensation, to non-being.
Democritum postquam matura vetustas
Admonuit memorem motus languescere mentis,
Sponte sua leto caput obvius obtulit ipse.
[When mature old age warned Democritus that he was losing his memory and h
is mental faculties, he spontaneously offered his head to Destiny.]
As Antisthenes said: We need a store of intelligence, to understand; failing that, a hangman’s rope. In this connection Chrysippus used to quote from Tyrtaeus the poet: ‘Draw near to virtue… or to death.’ [C] Crates used to say that love was cured by time or hunger; those who like neither can use the rope. [B] Sextius – the one whom Seneca and Plutarch talk so highly of – gave up everything and threw himself into the study of philosophy; he found his progress too long and too slow, so he decided to drown himself in the sea. In default of learning, he ran to death.
Philosophy lays down the law on this subject in these words: If some great evil should chance upon you – one you cannot remedy – then a haven is always near: swim out of your body as from a leaky boat; only a fool is bound to his body, not by love of life but by fear of death.134
[A] Just as life is made more pleasant by simplicity, it is also made better and more innocent (as I was about to say earlier on). According to St Paul, it is the simple and the ignorant who rise up and take hold of heaven, whereas we, with all our learning, plunge down into the bottomless pit of hell.135 I will not linger here over two Roman Emperors, Valentian – a sworn enemy of knowledge and scholarship – and Licinius, who called them a poison and a plague within the body politic;136 nor over Mahomet who, [C] I am told, [A] forbade his followers to study. What we must do is to attach great weight to the authoritative example of a great man, Lycurgus, as well as to the respect we owe to Sparta, a venerable, great and awe-inspiring form of government, where letters were not taught or practised but where virtue and happiness long flourished. Those who come back from the New World discovered by the Spaniards in the time of our fathers can testify how those peoples, without magistrates or laws, live lives more Ordinate and more just than any we find in our own countries, where there are more laws and legal officials than there are deeds or inhabitants.
Di cittatorie piene e di libelli,
D’esamine e di carte, di procure,
Hanno le mani e il seno, e gran fastelli
Di chiose, di consigli e di letture:
Per cui le faculta de poverelli
Non sono mai ne le citta sicure;
Hanno dietro e dinanzi, e d’ambi ilati,
Notai procuratori e advocati.
[Their hands and their law-bags are full of summonses, libels, inquests, documents and powers-of-attorney; they have great folders full of glosses, counsels’ opinions and statements. For all that, the poor are never safe in their cities but are surrounded, in front, behind and on both sides, by procurators and lawyers.]137
A later Roman senator meant much the same when he said that the breath of their forebears stank of garlic but inwardly they smelt of the musk of a good conscience; men of his time, on the contrary, were doused in perfume yet inwardly stank of every sort of vice.138 In other words he agrees with me: they had ample learning and ability but were very short of integrity. Lack of refinement, ignorance, simplicity and roughness go easily with innocence, whereas curiosity, subtlety and knowledge have falsehood in their train; the main qualities which conserve human society are humility, fear and goodness: they require a soul which is empty, teachable and not thinking much of itself.139
In Man curiosity is an innate evil, dating from his origins: Christians know that particularly well. The original Fall occurred when Man was anxious to increase his wisdom and knowledge: that path led headlong to eternal damnation. Pride undoes man; it corrupts him; pride makes him leave the trodden paths, welcome novelty and prefer to be the leader of a lost band wandering along the road to perdition; prefer to be a master of error and lies than a pupil in the school of Truth, guided by others and led by the hand along the straight and beaten path. That is perhaps what was meant by that old Greek saying, that Superstition follows Pride and obeys it as a father 140
[C] ‘Oh Pride! How thou dost trammel us!’ When Socrates was told that the god of Wisdom had called him wise, he was thunderstruck; he ransacked his mind and shook himself out but could find nothing to base this divine judgement upon. He knew other men who were as just, temperate, valiant and wise as he was: others he knew to be more eloquent, more handsome, more useful to their country. He finally concluded that, if he was different from others and wiser, it was only because he did not think he was; that his God thought any human who believed himself to be knowledgeable and wise was a singularly stupid animal; that his best teaching taught ignorance and his best wisdom was simplicity.141
[A] The Word of God proclaims that those of us who think well of ourselves are to be pitied: Dust and ashes (it says to them) what have ye to boast about? And elsewhere: God maketh man like unto a shadow who will judge him when the light departeth and the shadow vanisheth?142
In truth we are but nothing.
It is so far beyond our power to comprehend the majesty of God that the very works of our Creator which best carry his mark are the ones we least understand. To come across something unbelievable is, for Christians, an opportunity to exercise belief; it is all the more reasonable precisely because it runs counter to human reason. [B] If it were reasonable, it would not be a miracle if it followed a pattern, it would not be unique. [C] ‘Melius scitur deus nesciendo’ [God is best known by not knowing], said St Augustine. And Tacitus says, ‘Sanctius est ac reverentius de actis deorum credere quam scire’ [It is more holy and pious to believe what the gods have done than to understand them].143 Plato reckons that there is an element of vicious impiety in inquiring too curiously about God and the world or about first causes. As for Cicero, he says: ‘Atque ilium quidem parentem hujus universitatis invenire difficile; et, quum jam inveneris, indicare in vulgus, nefas’ [It is hard to discover the Begetter of this universe; and when you do discover him, it is impious to disclose him to the populace].144
[A] We confidently use words like might, truth, justice. They are words signifying something great. But what that ‘something’ is we cannot see or conceive. [B] We say that God ‘fears’, that God ‘is angry’, that God ‘loves’:
Immortalia mortali sermone notantes.
[Denoting immortal things in mortal speech.]145
But they are disturbances and emotions which in any form known to us find no place in God. Nor can we imagine them in forms known to him. [A] God alone can know himself; God alone can interpret his works. [C] And he uses improper, human, words to do so, stooping down to the earth where we lie sprawling.
Take Prudence; that consists in a choice between good and evil; how can that apply to God? No evil can touch him. Or take Reason and Intelligence, by which we seek to attain clarity amidst obscurity; there is nothing obscure to God. Or Justice, which distributes to each his due and which was begotten for the good of society and communities of men; how can that exist in God? And what about Temperance? It moderates bodily pleasures which have no place in the Godhead. Nor is Fortitude in the face of pain, toil or danger one of God’s qualities: those three things are unknown to him. That explains why Aristotle held that God is equally as free from virtue as from vice. ‘Neque gratia neque ira teneri potest, quod quae talia essent, imbecilla essent omnia’ [He can experience neither gratitude nor anger; such things are found only in the weak].146
[A] Whatever share in the knowledge of Truth we may have obtained, it has not been acquired by our own powers. God has clearly shown us that: it was out of the common people that he chose simple and ignorant apostles to bear witness of his wondrous secrets; the Christian faith is not something obtained by us: it is, purely and simply, a gift depending on the generosity of Another. Our religion did not come to us through reasoned arguments or from our own intelligence: it came to us from outside authority, by commandments. That being so, weakness of judgement helps us more than strength; blindness, more than clarity of vision. We become learned in God’s wisdom more by ignorance than by knowledge. It is not surprising that our earth-based, natural means cannot conceive knowledge which is heaven-based and supernatural; let us merely
bring our submissiveness and obedience: ‘For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the prudence of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath God not made the wisdom of this world like unto the foolishness as of beasts? For seeing that the world, through wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God through the vanity of preaching to save them that believe.’147
But is it within the capacity of Man to find what he is looking for? Has that quest for truth which has kept Man busy for so many centuries actually enriched him with some new power or solid truth? Now, at last, it is time to look into that question.
I think Man will confess, if he speaks honestly, that all he has gained from so long a chase is knowledge of his own weakness.148 By long study we have confirmed and verified that ignorance does lie naturally within us. The truly wise are like ears of corn: they shoot up and up holding their heads proudly erect – so long as they are empty; but when, in their maturity, they are full of swelling grain, their foreheads droop down and they show humility. So, too, with men who have assayed everything, sounded everything; within those piles of knowledge and the profusion of so many diverse things, they have found nothing solid, nothing firm, only vanity. They then renounce arrogance and recognize their natural condition.149