Complete Works of Matthew Prior

by Matthew Prior

  Lock. This is a pretty large Accusation, I hope You can make it good.

  Montaigne. Why, You confess in your very preface that when you first put Pen to Paper, you thought that all you should have to say on the matter would have been contained in one Sheet of Paper, and yet, you See, You have Swelled it into a Volume. How imperfectly therefore did you judge either of the Ext[e]nt of what was to be written or of the Method in which it should be Digested. But as we say in France, the Appetite comes in Eating; so in Writing You stil found more to write. From Ideas most unexpectedly sprung Solidity, Perception, Extension, Duration, Number, and Infinity, and from these again mixed Modes, Complex and Collected Ideas of Substances, Identity, Diversity, and fifty other glorious Tresortrouves, to which you the Master of the Soil have the only right and Property, and are entituled to dispose of them ex mero motu Sc pur a gratiâ to all Your Sectators, and Disciples, in Secula Seculorum. Now by the same way of working You might have left them Ten Volumes as well as one. Nay every Chapter might have been beaten out into a whole Book; and after Potentiality, Perceptivity, Mobility, and Motivity (which by the by You should have added to your Chapter of the Abuse of Words) You might have found out Ten thousand other Alitys and Ivitys, that would have looked equally well to the Eye in a Handsome Print, and conveyed just as much Knowledge to the Mind. Why Mr. Lock, your very Definition of Liberty, is, that it is something, which You your Self must feel; what signifies it therefore to Define it at all? Can any words out of another Mans Mouth make me understand if I feel a thing or no? Believe me, Mr. Lock, you Metaphysicians define your Object as some Naturalists divide it, in infinitum: But while you are doing so, the parts become so far Separated from each other, that You lose the sight of the thing it self. Another happyness arises from all this that whenever the Writer of this sort of Mysterious Demonstration, and his Reader Disagree (as happened between You and Stillingfleet, and in a case not unlike Yours between South and Sherlock) both are in the right, and both are in the wrong: While no Man else can well Judge what either of them meant. So the Dispute only terminates as it grows forgot, and as the Property of the Bookseller in the Unsold Sheets that contained it, is transferred to his next-door Neighbors, the Grocer and the Pastry Cook.

  Lock. So that You, the loosest of Writers, have no great respect for my close way of reasoning.

  Montaigne. Really, Mr. Locke, I should flatter You, if I said I had. One may read your Book over as the Irishman eat Whipt-cream, and when they asked him what he had been doing, he said, he had been tasting a great Nothing. All the while You wrote you were only thinking that You thought; You, and your Understanding are the Persona — , and the whole Amounts to no more than a Dialogue between John and Lock.

  As I walk’d by my Self

  I talked to my Self,

  And my self said unto Me.

  You seem in my poor apprehension, to go to and fro upon a Philosophical Swing, like a Child upon a wooden-horse, always in motion but without any Progress; and to Act as if a Mail instead of Practising his Trade should spend all his life in naming his Tools.

  Lock. Pian Piano good Seigneur, one must be able to Name ones Tools before one Learns the use of them. But if a Man does not leap Hedge and Ditch, in your Opinion, he stands stock still. I begin, continue and always keep close to my subject, The Human Understanding.

  Montaigne. That’s the very thing I object to, I think You keep so close to Your subject, that you have spoiled Your Book. When you have set your self in your Metaphysical Goe-Cart, in order to step sure, You walk too Slow to rid any ground, and as soon as you are out of it, You commonly Mistake your way. The least things must be Demonstrated to You where no body could have doubt of them, and when ever (which is indeed most commonly) such proof is wanting, You take the whole upon trust, without the previous examination, which any other reasonable Man would make. You strain as the Proverb says, at a Gnat and swallow a Camel; not giving a just allowance to probability. You sink between two Extremes, and when You are not supported by evident Demonstration you fill into the greatest Credulity imaginable. The Identity of the same Man consists in a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter in succession, Vitally united to the same Organized body, so that an Embryo is not a Person of One and twenty; Ismael is not Socrates, Pilate is not St. Austin. Who questions any thing of this, good Mr. Lock; Yet by the wav, Cæsar, who led to Battle many thousand of these Organized Bodys; Cicero, who could appease or excite them in the Senate; Bartholin, who could tell You how these Particles lay in relation to each other, and from thence what Remedies were to be applyed to the several Diseases and Violences they suffered; Spenser who could describe them all in Mythological words; and Raphael, who could imitate them in Animated Colours; All these, I say, neither thought or acted in virtue of your Definition; and if they did would not have performed any thing better in their Several Arts and Sciences. So again, the Chess-men standing upon those Squares of the Board, where we placed them, the the Chess Board be carryed out of one room into another, are stil said to remain in the same place; and the Chess-board is stil said to be in the same place it was, if it remain in the same part of the Cabin, the perhaps the Ship it is in Sails all the while, and the Ship is stil in the same place, supposing it kept the same Distance with the part of the Neighboring Land, the perhaps the Earth has turned round, and so both Chess-men and Board and Ship have every one changed place in respect of remoter bodies, which have kept the same distance one with another, and so on to the end of the Chapter. Who ever denyed one word of all this? and do You think now that You have explained what motion and repose is, so as to do any good to Mankind. Archimedes found out the burning-glass. Jacob Metius the Tellescope. Sandtorius the Thermometer, and Flavia Goia, the Compass, without Consulting or being guided by any sort of Verbiage like this, and I dare Swear neither Christopher Colombo, nor Francis Drake ever reasoned one half hour if their Chess-Board was in motion in relation to their Cabin, or their Cabin in regard to the Ship, all the while they were sailing round the World, and adding a fourth part to what was known of it before.

  Lock. But when in the name of Patience shal I have Liberty to reply?

  Montaigne. Immediately, as soon as I have waked your Idea’s into a remembrance that you tell us upon the Organization of the body, That Prince Maurice had an old Parrot in Brazil, who spoke, and asked, and answered Questions like a reasonable Creature; Who told the Prince he knew him to be a General, that he himself belonged to a Portuguese, that he came from Marinnar, and that his Employment was to keep the Chickens. Now who ever believed this, but Sir William Temple and your Self? and then again upon the rules of Motion; that a young Gentleman who had learned to Dance in great perfection in the Garrat, where an old Trunk stood, could never as much as cut one Caper rightly in any other room, unless that Trunk or another exceeding like it, was set in the same Position: So that the Man rather Danced to the Trunk than to the Violin. Parbleu, Squire Lock, I appeal to all Mankind, if ever I said any thing so extravagant as this, in my Chapter of the force of Imagination in Man and Beasts.

  Lock, How this Gascon runs away with things, I do not say I have the exact Criterion Veritatis, but I search it. I dont pretend to Infalibility, but as much as I can I endeavor to avoid Error. And since it is only by my understanding that I can judge of other things It is proper in order to that, that I make that understanding first judge of it self.

  Montaigne. There is a Je ne-scay quay in these words that affords me but little Satisfaction. But you Metaphysicians think with too much Subtilty to be pleased with what is Natural.

  Lock. Natural, why is any thing plainer than what I said? I studied to know my self. Nosce Te. You love Authority, and I might quote it as the saying of One of the Wise Men of Greece.

  Montaigne. I understand You now Mr. Lock, but I do no more respect it (as much as you think I love Authority) for being meerly the saying of the Wise Men of Greece, than if it had been of one of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome, or the Seven C
hampions of Christendom: The Truth of the saying must justify the Author.

  Lock. But according to your own way, has the Maxim weight with it, without any regard to Authority? should not a Man know Himself? Answer Directly.

  Montaigne. I will, Sir, and in the saying of another Wise Man, (of what Country not three Straws matter) he that does not talk with a Wiser Man than Himself, may happen to dye Ignorant. Really who ever writes in Folio should convince People that he knows something besides Himself, else few would read his Book, except his very particular Friends.

  Lock. I will give you up as many as you please of those particular Friends, provided the few (be they my Friends or no) that can think consequentially, and reason justly upon Premises, approve my Writings. In one word I do not write to the Vulgar.

  Montaigne. And they are the only People that should be writ to. Not write to the Vulgar? quoth thou; Egad the Vulgar are the only Scholars. If they had not Taught Us we had been Stupid. The Observations made by Shepherds in Egypt and Chaldea gave birth to Geometry and Astronomy. The variety of sound from the Hammers of Smiths striking on their Anville was the Original of their Scale of Music. And some traces on the sand by a poor Cow-herd gave the first Idea of Painting. Homer and Virgil will scarse be exempted from the Company of the Vulgar; if One went a begging thrô all Greece and composed his Iliads for his bread; And t’other the Son of a Potter at Mantua, came on foot to Rome, to Solicite the favor of Augustus. Was not Gun Powder invented by a poor Monk at Nuremberg; And Printing by an Inferior Tradesman at Haerlem. Look thro your Microscopes and know that Lewinhoeck that brought them to such perfection was a Glazier; and when you next set Your Watch, remember that Tompion was a farrier, and began his great Knowledge in the Équation of Time by regulating the wheels of a common Jack, to roast Meat. Nay faith the Vulgar are the only Criticks too; for what is Praise but the Universal Collection of their Consent, and whence can that Consent be derived but from their Understanding our Writings? Æsop and Epictetus had more sense than their Masters. Sophocles shewed his Tragedies to his Maid. Since our time Racine said, he doubted of the success of his Phædra till his Coachman told him he liked the Character of Hypolitus. And Boileau Addresses one of his Epistles to Antoine his Favorite Gardiner. In short I am one of those Vulgar, for whom, you say, You do not write; And in the Name of our whole Community, I take leave to tell You, I think, You have wronged both us and your subject.

  Lock. You are not Serious when You say this?

  Montaigne. As ever I was in my life, and so I go on Mr. Lock, your Mind was given you for the Conduct of your life, not meerly for your own Speculation; nor should it be imployed only upon its self, but upon other things. I think we should take our Understanding as Providence hath given it to Us, upon Content; As we could do a handsome Sum of Money, sent us by a good Friend; and spend our time rather in making use of it, then in counting it. A Man should live with his Alma (as Friend Prior calls her) as he would do with his Wife, having taken her for better and for worse. He should be Civil to her, keep her in good Humor, but not cutt her up like an Anatomy to shew the Situation of her parts, and read Lectures upon the soundness or defects of her Intrails. If you are always tugging at your Purse Strings, you may chance to break them; and if You turn and tumble the Purse it self, at last you will drop your Money out of it. What occasion have you for a Tongue if you are to talk for ever to your self. If you were always poking your Fingers into your Eyes, you would hardly see the Clearer, and if again your Eyes were continually endeavoring [to] look one upon an other, you would only get a habit of Squinting. If you be stil trying to see your own back, you might one time or other break your Neck. Dont be angry with me, Lock, if in my odd way of Imaging things, I have often thought, that a Metaphysician running in a Circle after his own understanding, is like a Dog turning round and endeavoring to catch his own Taile; if he cannot take hold of it he grows giddy, and when ever he does, he bites it, and it hurts him, and so he lets it go again.

  Lock. That last Simile indeed was a little Ludicrous.

  Montaigne. I will give you another more Serious, while I repeat to You that your own Mind (in the manner you consider it) is too near you. It is like some uncouth figures and Colours laid together, unparted and unformed, if you look upon the whole too closely; But if you view it in a due Medium thro the Cylinder opposed to it, the rays rise up to their just Dimension, and shew you something Plain and Intelligible.

  Lock. Simile upon Simile, no consequential Proof, right Montaigne by my troth. Why Sir you catch at Similes as Swallows [do] at Flies.

  Montaigne. And you make Simeles while you blame them. But be that as it will, Mr. Lock, Arguing by Simele is not so absurd as some of you dry Reasoners would make People believe. If your Simile be proper and good, it is at once a full proof, and a lively illustration of your Matter, and where it does not hold, the very disproportion gives you Occasion to reconsider it, and you set it in all its lights, if it be only to find at least how unlike it is. Egad Simile is the very Algebra of Discourse.

  Lock. Let me therefore Answer you in your own way, and give you back your Cylinder, while I take the liberty to tell You that the Glass I looked into, was a fair true Mirour and rightly placed.

  Montaigne. Let the Glass be of what Figure you please, if you presented nothing before it but your own Dear Person, what could you see but what flattered the foppery of Youth, and at last shewed only the decay and wrinkles of Age.

  Lock, And pray, Sir, inform us a little, into what Glass did You look?

  Montaigne, Into the great Mirour of the World, where I saw the universal face of Nature, and the images of all objects that the Eye can possibly take in. I pursued the Human Mind thro’ all her lurking holes, & retreats, the prevention of Education, the Mimicking of habitude, and the Power of Custom. I represented Ignorance and Folly in their Native Colours, I gave just encouragement thro all my writings to plain Honesty, and to open Honor. Shewed very often, as I said just now, how our Vanity might contribute to our Virtue. I endeavored to find the Medium between the Aversion to Pain and love of Pleasure to mingle our hopes and fears so in their just temperature of what we will at present call Prudence, that if my thought could not enjoy full Satisfaction, it might at least find the Evil of life Diminished. I drew together the reflections, which Courts, Camps, Cities and Nations presented unto me. Gave you fairly my Opinion of Emperors and Law-Givers, Soldiers and Philosophers. I contemplated the Situation of Earths and Seas, the revolutions of the Sun, the different Motions and operations of the Stars; and from the Works of Nature, and my Observations upon them, I deduced the Being, and forced my Reader to own the Power, of a D[ei]ty. Yet all this while, I durst not pretend to fix the bounds of Truth and Error, at least I thought that could not be done by a sett of Words. It must rather depend, as I concluded upon Experience, or at least Probability. I gave the World my Writings, as the Effects only of my own Meditations; rather what I my self thought than what other Men should think, and was always so far from setting up for an Instructor, that (as I have often said) I was ready to alter my Opinion as I might be better Instructed by the Discourses or Writings of any of my Friends. This was my manner of thinking. Now, Sir, as at the beginning of our Discourse we had some of your Axiomes, will you let me here give you half a Dozen of Mine.

  Lock, As You please, Sir, I have Patience, and You love talking.

  Montaigne, As to our Selves, first, Opinion and Custom do every thing, divide Us into Sects, make Laws and Govern our Lives. Our wishes contemn what is easy and near, and aspire to what is forbid or hard to come at, and whilst we desire what is not in our Possession we less enjoy that which is. Our chief business in life is to learn to bear the ills of it. He that fears to Suffer, suffers already what he fears; Or would you have it in other words, He that dreads Punishment, already suffers it, and he that Merits it, must always dread it — Again, we are always beyond our selves; fear, desire, hope throw us forward into Futurity, and take away our Sense of what is to Amuse us, with what shal be,
and that too possibly when we cannot perceive it — We should neither fly nor follow Pleasures, but take them as they come. There is no pleasure so Just and lawful but is blameable if used in intemperance or Éxcess — Have you composed your own Manners, and lived as you ought to do with your Neighbor? have you done more than he who has written Volumes, or taken Cities? To be Honest is the end and Design of our Life: To heap up, to build, to Conquer, to Reign, are things only Accidental and Secondary. A Lye is below the Dignity of Human Nature. As we are distinguished from other Creatures by Speech, the very bond of our Society is tyed by the Truth of our Words. If falsehood like Truth had but one face, how happy should we be: We should take that for certain, which was directly contrary to what the Liar (if we thought him such) said. But alas! Error has fifty deviating Paths, whereas there is but one road directly right — Of Valour now; Who could say better than this, valour has its Limits as well as other Virtues, and foolhardiness is as great a Vice as Cowardise — Of Civility; the greatest Civility is sometimes shown in being less Ceremonius. I have seen People impertinent by too much good Manners, and troublesome with the greatest Decorum — As to Government; the Notion of Liberty in a Commonwealth hath the same effect upon a Man born under that rule, as the Glory of the King has upon one born in an absolute Monarchy. And every Man loves and speaks well of the Country where he was born; and sucked in his first Notions, be it France or Tartary. Hence it is that after all our Travells thro the World we desire to come and Dye at home — As to Science; Plants may be killed with too plentiful nourishment, and Lamps extinguished by too great a supply of Oyle; We may have so much Science that it may confound our Judgment. It is not enough to know the Theory of things without being able to put them in Practice. In the Commerce of life instead of desiring to learn from others we are only seeking to make our Selves known, and are more in Pain to put off our old Merchandise than to endeavor to acquire any New — Of Solitude; it is in vain that we retire from the World if we carry our Faults with us, Our Vanity and Our Avarice may follow us wherever we go: No retreat, no Cloyster, no Desart can exclude them: To enable us to live in True Solitude, we must make our Satisfaction depend upon our Selves: We should do well sometimes to fancy we had no Family, no Wealth, no Relations, no Servants, that if any of those Losses happen to Us, they may not appear New — What think You of my Contemplations upon Death? Things sometimes appear greater to us as they are further off. In Health I have apprehended the thoughts of Sickness with more Horror than I have felt it: Go out of the World as you came into it, without Passion and without fear. Your Death is one part of the Universal Order of Nature, and every day you have lived was only to bring you nearer to that in which you must Dye. Can you think you must never arrive at that Place towards which you are always a going? Comfort your Self you have good Company in the way. A Thousand Men, and ten thousand Animals Dye in the very same moment with You — Now for Two or Three things I have said of Princes; The advantages of the great are mostly imaginary, the inconveniences and hindrances of Life, which they must suffer are real; While every Man naturally hates to be watched and Spyed, They are the only People that must yield to this Subjection, every Subject thinks he has a right to observe even the Countenance and thoughts of his Prince, and the Master dares not blame but must thank him for his Care. If Princes would begin to retrench from Luxury, and live with Sobriety and Moderation, there would be no Occasion for Sumptuary Laws: in a Month the Court would imitate the King, and the People in a Year would imitate the Court: Virtue would soon be Practiced as it became fashionable. We owe our Submission and Obedience to Kings whether They be good or bad. This regards their Dignity and Office, But we give them our Esteem and Affection in proportion only to their Merit and Virtue. The lives of Princes are subject to be Examined after their Death. The justice which cannot be obtained against their Persons is with great reason executed upon their Reputation. Would you have any more, Mr. Lock? mort de ma, Why you are fast a sleep Man.