They had not persuaded me but they had made me anxious. Their arguments had shaken me but without ever convincing me; I could not find a good response to them, but I felt there must be one. I considered myself guilty less of error than of incompetence, and my heart answered them better than my reason.
I finally said to myself: Shall I allow myself to be forever tossed about by the specious arguments of the eloquent whose opinions, which they preach and which they are so keen for others to accept, I am not even sure are their own? Their passions, which determine their opinions and their interest in making people believe this or that, make it impossible to discover what they themselves believe. Can one look for good faith in the leaders of parties? Their philosophy is for others; I need one for myself. Let us look for it with all my strength while there is still time, so that I may have a fixed rule of conduct for the rest of my days. Here I am in my mature years, at the absolute height of my understanding. I am already nearing decline. If I wait any longer, I shall not have all my strength at my disposal in my later deliberations; my intellectual faculties will have lessened their activity, and I shall do less well then what today I can do as well as I ever shall: let us seize this propitious moment; it is the time of my external and material reform, so let it also be the time of my intellectual and moral reform. Let us fix once and for all my opinions and my principles, and let us be for the rest of my life what careful thought will have shown me I should be.
I carried out this plan slowly and in several stages, but with all the effort and attention I could muster. I felt keenly that the tranquillity of the rest of my days and indeed my entire fate depended on it. To begin with I found myself in such a labyrinth of obstacles, difficulties, objections, complexities, and obscurities that, having twenty times been tempted to abandon everything, I was ready to give up my futile research, limit myself in my deliberations to the rules of common prudence, and stop looking for rules in principles which I had such difficulty in disentangling. But even this prudence was so foreign to me and I felt so ill-suited to acquiring it that taking it as my guide would have been akin to searching across high seas and through storms, without a rudder or a compass, for a lighthouse that was barely accessible and that did not show me the way to any port.
I persevered: for the first time in my life I was brave, and it is thanks to this that I was able to bear the horrible destiny that started enveloping me at that time without my having the least suspicion of it. After perhaps the most ardent and sincere research that has ever been undertaken by any mortal, I made up my mind for the rest of my life about all the opinions that it was important for me to have, and even if I may have been wrong in my decisions, I am at least sure that I cannot be reproached for my error, since I did everything I could to avoid it. I do not doubt, it is true, that my childhood prejudices and my heart’s secret wishes made the balance swing in the most comforting direction for me. It is difficult to prevent oneself from believing what one so ardently longs for, and who can doubt that the interest one has in accepting or rejecting the judgements of the afterlife determines the faith of most men according to their hopes or their fears? All this was capable of bewitching my judgement, I admit it, but not of undermining my good faith, since I was afraid of getting anything wrong. If the use we make of this life was all that mattered, it was important for me to know so as to be able at least to make the most I possibly could of it while there was still time and not to be a complete dupe. But what I feared most in the world, given the state of mind in which I felt myself to be, was endangering the eternal fate of my soul for the sake of enjoying worldly riches, the value of which has never seemed to me to be very great.
I admit too that I did not always dispel to my own satisfaction all the difficulties that had bewildered me and which our philosophers had so often drummed into my ears. But, determined finally to make up my mind on matters over which human intelligence has such a slight hold and finding on all sides impenetrable mysteries and unanswerable objections, I adopted in each question the opinion which seemed to me the best established and most credible in itself, without worrying about objections which I could not resolve but which were counterbalanced by other, equally strong objections in the opposing system. To adopt a dogmatic tone on these matters would suit only a charlatan; but it is important to have one’s own opinion and to choose it with all the maturity of judgement that one can muster. If, in spite of all this, we still fall into error, we cannot reasonably be punished for it since we are not responsible for it. This is the unshakeable principle on which my confidence is founded.
The result of my gruelling research was more or less what I have since written down in the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,* a work which has been shamefully dishonoured and profaned by the present generation but which one day might cause a revolution among men, if ever good sense and good faith return.
Having remained since then untroubled in the principles which I had adopted after such long and careful meditation, I have made them the unchanging rule of my conduct and my faith and have ceased worrying about the objections which I had been unable to resolve or those which I had not foreseen and which recently arose in my mind from time to time. They have sometimes troubled me but they have never shaken my resolve. I have always said to myself: All these are mere captious arguments and metaphysical subtleties which count as nothing compared to the fundamental principles adopted by my reason, confirmed by my heart, and which all bear the seal of inner assent granted when the passions are silent. In matters so far above human understanding, will an objection that I cannot resolve overturn a whole body of doctrine which is so solid, so coherent, and shaped by so much meditation and care, so well suited to my reason, my heart, and my whole being, and reinforced by the inner assent that I feel to be lacking in all the others? No, vain logic will never destroy the consistency that I perceive between my immortal nature and the constitution of this world and the physical order that I see reigning in it. I find in the corresponding moral order, whose system has been revealed by my research, the support I need to be able to suffer the miseries of this life. In any other system I would live without resources and I would die without hope. I would be the most wretched of creatures. So let us hold fast to that system which alone is able to make me happy in spite of fortune and men.
Do not these deliberations and the conclusion that I drew from them seem to have been inspired by Heaven itself to prepare me for the destiny awaiting me and to enable me to bear it? What would have become of me, what would become of me now, in the awful anguish that awaited me and in the incredible situation to which I am reduced for the rest of my life, if, remaining without any refuge to which I could escape from my implacable persecutors, without any consolation for the ignominy that they make me endure in this world, and without any hope of ever obtaining the justice that was rightly mine, I had been abandoned entirely to the most horrible fate that any mortal on earth has ever suffered? Just as, untroubled in my innocence, I imagined that men would show only respect and goodwill towards me, and just as my frank and trusting heart opened itself up to friends and brothers, the traitors were silently ensnaring me in nets spun in the depths of hell. Caught unawares by the most unforeseen of all misfortunes and the most terrible there can be for a proud soul, dragged through the mud without ever knowing by whom or why, thrown into an abyss of ignominy, and enveloped in horrible darkness through which I could only make out sinister objects, I was brought low by the first shock, and I would never have recovered from the state of total collapse into which this unexpected kind of misfortune threw me, if I had not prepared in advance the strength I needed to pick myself up again when I fell.
It was only after years of anxiety that, finally recovering and beginning to be myself again, I felt the value of the resources that I had prepared in case of adversity. Having made my mind up about all those things on which it was important for me to make a judgement, I saw, when I compared my maxims with the situation I was in, that I accorded far mor
e importance than they actually had to the senseless judgements of men and the trivial events of this short life. Since this life was merely a series of trials, it mattered little of what kind these trials were, so long as they resulted in the effect for which they were designed, and that, consequently, the greater, the more testing, and the more numerous the trials, the more advantageous it was to know how to endure them. All the sharpest pains lose their strength for someone who sees that their recompense is great and sure; and the certainty of this recompense was the principal fruit of my earlier meditations.
It is true that in the midst of the countless injuries and excessive humiliations which I felt being heaped upon me from all sides, moments of anxiety and doubt occasionally shook my hope and disturbed my peace. The powerful objections which I had been unable to resolve then confronted my mind all the more forcefully and completely overwhelmed me at precisely those moments when, overburdened by the weight of my destiny, I was about to fall into despondency. New arguments I heard often resurfaced in my mind in support of those which had already tormented me. Ah! I would then say to myself, the pangs of my heart nearly suffocating me, who will save me from despair if, in the horror of my fate, I now see nothing but fanciful dreams in the consolation that my reason offered me, if, thus destroying its own work, my reason can overturn all the hope and faith that it had given me as support in adversity? What support can illusions give that delude nobody in the world but me? The entire present generation sees only errors and prejudice in the opinions in which I alone find nourishment; it finds truth and clarity in the system opposed to my own; it even seems unable to believe that I have adopted mine in good faith, and even I, while enthusiastically dedicating myself to it, find in it insurmountable difficulties that it is impossible for me to resolve but which do not prevent me from persisting. So am I alone wise, am I alone enlightened among mortals? Is it enough that things suit me for me to believe that they are as they are? Can I put an enlightened trust in appearances which have nothing solid about them in the eyes of the rest of men and which would even seem illusory to me, if my heart did not support my reason? Would it not have been better to fight my persecutors with their own weapons by adopting their maxims than to have held fast to the illusions of my own, vulnerable to their attacks and doing nothing to repel them? I believe myself to be wise but I am merely a dupe, a victim, and a martyr to a pointless error.
How often in these moments of doubt and uncertainty did I come close to giving way to despair. If I had ever been in that state for a whole month, it would have been the end of my life and of me. But these crises, although once quite frequent, were always short-lived, and now, while I am still not completely free of them, they are so rare and so brief that they do not have the same capacity to disturb my peace of mind. These are passing anxieties which have no more effect on my soul than a feather falling into the water has on the course of a river. I felt that to consider again the same points on which I had previously made up my mind was to presuppose that I had new knowledge, a more developed judgement, or a greater zeal for the truth than I had when I conducted my research, and that since none of these was or could be the case with me, I could have no sound reason for preferring opinions which, my being laid low with despair, only tempted me in order to increase my suffering, to opinions I had adopted in the prime of my life, in the full maturity of my mind after the most careful examination, and at a time when the calm of my life left me with no overriding interest other than that of knowing the truth. Today, when my heart is wracked with anguish, my soul weighed down by woe, my imagination frightened, and my head troubled by all the awful mysteries that surround me, today, when all my faculties, weakened by age and anxiety, have lost all their resilience, shall I light-heartedly deprive myself of all the resources that I had prepared for myself and place more trust in my declining reason, which makes me unjustly miserable, than in my full and vigorous reason, compensating me for the ills I suffer undeservedly? No, I am neither wiser nor better informed nor more sincere than I was when I made up my mind on these great questions: I knew full well then the difficulties which today I let trouble me; they did not stop me then, and if there are now new and unforeseen ones, they are but the sophistries of a subtle metaphysics which cannot outweigh the eternal truths which have been accepted at all times and by all wise men, recognized by all nations, and indelibly engraved on the human heart. I knew, as I meditated on these matters, that human understanding, limited by the senses, could not fully comprehend them. I therefore limited myself to what was within my grasp and did not tackle what was beyond it. This course of action was a reasonable one, I adopted it in the past, and kept to it with the approval of my heart and my reason. Why would I renounce it today, when so many powerful motives make me cling to it? What danger do I see in following it? What advantage would I gain in abandoning it? If I were to accept my persecutors’ doctrine, would I also have to accept their morality? That morality is the rootless, fruitless morality that they pompously expound in books or in some magnificent action on the stage, without any of it ever penetrating the heart or the reason; or there is also their other, secret, and cruel morality, the hidden doctrine shared by all the initiated, which the other doctrine serves only to mask, which is their sole guide to behaviour and which they have so deftly practised with respect to me. This morality, which is purely offensive, serves no purpose in defence and is good only for attack. Of what use would it be to me in the state to which they have reduced me? My innocence alone supports me in my misfortunes, and how much more miserable would I make myself if, depriving myself of this single but powerful resource, I replaced it with malice? Would I equal them in the art of wronging others, and if I did, which pain of mine would be relieved by the pain I could inflict on them? I would lose my own self-respect and gain nothing in its place.
In this way, reasoning with myself, I succeeded in no longer letting my principles be shaken by specious arguments, insoluble objections, and difficulties which were beyond my grasp and perhaps beyond that of the human mind. My own mind, resting on the most solid foundations I was able to give it, became so used to being settled there, sheltered by my conscience, that no old or new strange doctrine can any longer unsettle it or disturb my peace of mind for a single moment. Sunk in weariness and increasing heaviness of mind, I have forgotten even the arguments on which I based my belief and my maxims, but I shall never forget the conclusions I have drawn from them with the approval of my conscience and my reason, and I shall henceforth hold fast to them. Let all the philosophers come and raise their quibbling objections: they will be wasting their time and effort. For the rest of my life I shall in all things hold fast to the course of action I chose when I was better able to do so.
In this untroubled state of mind, I find not only self-contentment but also the hope and consolation I need in my situation. It is inevitable that a solitude so complete, so permanent, and in itself so sad, the ever-present and ever-active animosity of the entire present generation, and the humiliations which they constantly heap on me should sometimes depress me; shaken hope and discouraging doubts still occasionally return to unsettle my soul and fill it with sadness. It is on such occasions that, incapable of the mental processes necessary to reassure myself, I need to remind myself of my former decisions; the care, the attention, and the sincerity of heart with which I took them then come back to mind and restore my complete confidence. Thus I reject all new ideas as if they were harmful errors which have only a false appearance of truth and which are only fit to disturb my peace of mind.
Confined in this way to the narrow sphere of my former knowledge, I do not have, like Solon, the good fortune to be able to learn as I grow older day by day, and indeed I must avoid the dangerous presumption of wanting to learn what I am now incapable of knowing; but if there are few useful things that I can hope to learn, there is still much I can learn about the virtues necessary for my situation in life. That is why it is time to enrich and adorn my soul with a knowledge that it can
take with it when, released from this body that dazzles and blinds it, and seeing the truth unveiled, it perceives the worthlessness of all the knowledge of which our false philosophers are so proud. It will bemoan the time wasted in this life in trying to acquire it. But patience, kindness, resignation, integrity, and impartial justice are treasures that we can take with us and which can make us ever richer, without fear that death itself will ever rob us of their value. It is to this single and useful study that I devote the rest of my old age. I shall be happy if, by the progress I make with myself, I learn to leave life, not better, for that is not possible, but more virtuous than when I entered it.
FOURTH WALK
AMONG the small number of books that I still sometimes read, Plutarch is the author whom I enjoy most and find most useful. He is what I first read as a child, and he will be what I read last in my old age; he is almost the only author whom I have never read without gaining something. The day before yesterday I was reading in his moral works the essay How to Profit by One’s Enemies.* The same day, as I was sorting out some pamphlets that had been sent to me by their authors, I came upon a volume of the abbé Rozier’s journal,* on the title page of which he had written these words: Vitam vero impendenti, Rozier.* Too familiar with these gentlemen and their way with words to be deceived by this, I understood that he had meant, under the air of politeness, to be cruelly ironic: but on what grounds? Why this sarcasm? What could I have done to deserve it? In order to benefit from good Plutarch’s lessons, I decided to use my walk the following day to examine myself on the subject of lying, and I set about it firmly committed to the opinion that I had already formed, namely that the Know thyself of the Temple at Delphi* was not such an easy maxim to follow as I had believed in my Confessions.
Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Oxford World's Classics) Page 7
