What I do is ordinarily full and complete, and I march (as we say) all in one piece. I have not many motions that hide themselves and slink away from my reason, or which very near are not guided by the consent of all my parts without division or intestine sedition. My judgement hath the whole blame or commendation, and the blame it hath once, it hath ever. For, almost from its birth, it hath been one of the same inclination, course, and force. And in matters of general opinions, even from my infancy, I ranged myself to the point I was to hold.
Some sins there are outrageous, violent, and sudden; leave we them. But those other sins, so often reassumed, determined, and advised upon, whether they be of complexion, [46] or of profession and calling, I cannot conceive how they should so long be settled in one same courage, [47] unless the reason and conscience of the sinner were thereunto inwardly privy and constantly willing. And how to imagine or fashion the repentance thereof which, he [48] vaunteth, doth sometimes visit him, seemeth somewhat hard unto me.
I am not of Pythagoras’ sect, that men take a new soul when, to receive oracles, they approach the images of gods, unless he would say with all that it must be a strange one, new and lent him for the time, our own, giving so little sign of purification and cleanness worthy of that office.
They do altogether against the Stoical precepts, which appoint us to correct the imperfections and vices we find in ourselves, but withal forbid us to disturb the quiet of our mind. They make us believe they feel great remorse and are inwardly much displeased with sin. But of amendment, correction, or intermission, they show us none. Surely there can be no perfect health, where the disease is not perfectly removed. Were repentance put in the scale of the balance, it would weigh down sin. I find no humour so easy to be counterfeited as devotion. If one conform not his life and conditions to it, her essence is abstruse and concealed, her appearance gentle and stately.
For my part, I may in general wish to be other than I am; I may condemn and mislike my universal form; I may beseech God to grant me an undefiled reformation and excuse my natural weakness. But me seemeth I ought not to term this repentance, no more than the displeasure of being neither angel nor Cato. [49] My actions are squared to what I am and conformed to my condition. I cannot do better. And repentance doth not properly concern what is not in our power; sorrow doth. I may imagine infinite dispositions of a higher pitch and better governed than mine, yet do I nothing better my faculties; no more than mine arm becometh stronger or my wit more excellent by conceiving some others to be so. If to suppose and wish a more nobler working than ours might produce the repentance of our own, we should then repent us of our most innocent actions. Forsomuch as we judge that in a more excellent nature, they had been directed with greater perfection and dignity, and ourselves would do the like.
When I consult with my age of my youth’s proceedings, I find that commonly (according to my opinion) I managed them in order. This is all my resistance is able to perform. I flatter not myself; in like circumstances, I should ever be the same. It is not a spot, but a whole dye that stains me. I acknowledge no repentance...[that] is superficial, mean, and ceremonious. It must touch me on all sides before I can term it repentance. It must pinch my entrails and afflict them as deeply and thoroughly, as God himself beholds me.
When in negotiating, many good fortunes have slipped me for want of good discretion yet did my projects make good choice, according to the occurrences presented unto them. Their manner is ever to take the easier and surer side. I find that in my former deliberations I proceeded, after my rules, discretely, for the subject’s state propounded to me; and in like occasions would proceed alike a hundred years hence. I respect [50] not what now it is, but what it was when I consulted of it.
The consequence of all designs consists in the seasons; occasions pass, and matters change uncessantly. I have in my time run into some gross, absurd, and important errors; not for want of good advice but of good hap. There are secret and indivinable parts in the objects men do handle, especially in the nature of men; and mute conditions without show and sometimes unknown of the very possessors produced and stirred up by sudden occasions. If my wit could neither find nor presage [51] them, I am not offended with it; the function thereof is contained within its own limits. If the success [52] beat me and favour the side I refused, there is no remedy; I fall not out with myself; I accuse my fortune, not my endeavour. That’s not called repentance.
Phocion had given the Athenians some counsel which was not followed; the matter, against his opinion, succeeding happily. “How now, Phocion” (quoth one), “art thou pleased the matter hath thrived so well?” “Yea” (said he), “and I am glad of it, yet repent not the advice I gave.”
When any of my friends come to me for counsel, I bestow it frankly and clearly, not (as well nigh all the world doth) wavering at the hazard of the matter, whereby the contrary of my meaning may happen, that so they may justly find fault with my advice. For which I care not greatly. For they shall do me wrong, and it became not me to refuse them that duty.
I have nobody to blame for my faults or misfortunes but myself. For in effect I seldom use the advice of others, unless it be for compliment’s sake and where I have need of instruction or knowledge of the fact. Marry, in things wherein nought but judgement is to be employed, strange reasons may serve to sustain but not to divert me. I lend a favourable and courteous ear unto them all. But (to my remembrance) I never believed any but mine own. With me they are but flies and moathes [53] which distract my will. I little regard mine own opinions, other men’s I esteem as little. Fortune pays me accordingly. If I take no counsel, I give as little. I am not much sought after for it and less credited when I give it. Neither know I any enterprise, either private or public, that my advice hath directed and brought to conclusion. Even those whom fortune had some way tied thereunto have more willingly admitted the direction of others’ conceits than mine. As one that am as jealous of the rights of my quiet as of those of my authority, I would rather have it thus. Where leaving me, [54] they jump with my profession, which is wholly to settle and contain me in myself. It is a pleasure unto me to be disinterested of other men’s affairs and disengaged from their contentions.
When suits or businesses be over-past, howsoever it be, I grieve little at them. For the imagination that they must necessarily happen so puts me out of pain: behold them in the course of the universe and enchained in Stoical causes. Your fancy cannot by wish or imagination remove one point of them, but the whole order of things must reverse both what is past and what is to come.
Moreover, I hate that accidental repentance which old age brings with it. He that in ancient times said he was beholden to years because they had rid him of voluptuousness was not of mine opinion. I shall never give impuissance [55] thanks for any good it can do me. Nec tam aversa vnquam videbitur ab opere suo prouidentia, ut debilitas inter optima inuenta sit. Nor shall foresight ever be seen so averse from her own work that weakness be found to be one of the best things. [56] Our appetites are rare in old age; the blow over-passed, a deep sacietie [57] seizeth upon us. Therein I see no conscience. Fretting care and weakness imprint in us an effeminate and drowsy virtue. We must not suffer ourselves so fully to be carried into natural alterations as to corrupt or adulterate our judgement by them. Youth and pleasure have not heretofore prevailed so much over me but I could ever (even in the midst of sensualities) discern the ugly face of sin; nor can the distaste which years bring on me at this instant keep me from discerning that of voluptuousness in vice. Now I am no longer in it, I judge of it as if I were still there.
I, who lively and attentively examine my reason, find it to be the same that possessed me in my most dissolute and licentious age, unless perhaps they, [58] being enfeebled and impaired by years, do make some difference. And [I] find that what delight it refuseth to afford me in regard of my bodily health, it would no more deny me than in times past, for the health of my soul. To see it out of combat, I hold it not the more courageous. My temptat
ions are so mortified and crazed as they are not worthy of its oppositions. Holding but my hand before me, I becalm them. Should one present that former concupiscence unto it, I fear it would be of less power to sustain it than heretofore it hath been. I see in it by itself no increase of judgement nor access of brightness; what it now judgeth, it did then. Wherefore if there be any amendment, [59] ’tis but diseased.
Oh miserable kind of remedy, to be beholden unto sickness for our health. It is not for our mishap but for the good success of our judgement to perform this office. Crosses and afflictions make me do nothing but curse them; they are for people that cannot be awaked but by the whip. The course of my reason is the nimbler in prosperity. It is much more distracted and busied in the digesting of mischiefs than of delights. I see much clearer in fair weather. Health forewarneth me, as with more pleasure, so to better purpose than sickness. I approached the nearest I could unto amendment and regularity when I should have enjoyed the same. I should be ashamed and vexed that the misery and mishap of my old age could exceed the health, attention, and vigor of my youth, and that I should be esteemed, not for what I have been, but for what I am left to be.
The happy life (in my opinion), not (as said Antisthenes) the happy death, is it that makes man’s happiness in this world. I have not preposterously [60] busied myself to tie the tail of a philosopher unto the head and body of a varlet; [61] nor that this paltry end should disavow and belie the fairest, soundest, and longest part of my life. I will present myself and make a general muster of my whole, everywhere uniformly. Were I to live again, it should be as I have already lived. I neither deplore what is past nor dread what is to come. And if I be not deceived, the inward parts have nearly resembled the outward. It is one of the chiefest points wherein I am beholden to fortune that, in the course of my body’s estate, each thing hath been carried in season. I have seen the leaves, the blossoms, and the fruit; and now see the drooping and withering of it—happily, because naturally. I bear my present miseries the more gently because they are in their prime, and with greater favour make me remember the long happiness of my former life.
In like manner, my discretion [62] may well be of like proportion in the one and the other time; but sure it was of much more performance, and had a better grace, being fresh, jolly, and full of spirit than now that it is worn, decrepit, and toilsome.
I therefore renounce these casual and dolorous reformations.
God must touch our hearts; our conscience must amend of itself and not by reinforcement of our reason nor by the enfeebling of our appetites. [63] Voluptuousness in itself is neither pale nor discoloured, to be discerned by bleary and troubled eyes. We should affect [64] temperance and chastity for itself and for God’s cause, who hath ordained them unto us; that which Catars [65] bestow upon us and which I am beholden to my colic for is neither temperance nor chastity. A man cannot boast of contemning or combating sensuality if he see her not or know not her grace, her force, and most attractive beauties.
I know them both and therefore may speak it. But methinks our souls in age are subject unto more importunate diseases and imperfections than they are in youth. I said so, being young, when my beardless chin was upbraided me. [66] And I say it again, now that my gray beard gives me authority. We entitle “wisdom” the frowardness [67] of our humours and the distaste of present things. But in truth we abandon not vices so much as we change them, and, in mine opinion, for the worse. Besides a silly and ruinous pride, cumbersome tattle, [68] wayward and unsociable humors, superstition, and a ridiculous carking for [69] wealth when the use of it is well-nigh lost, I find the more envy, injustice, and lewdness in it. It sets more wrinkles in our minds than on our foreheads; nor are there any spirits, or very rare ones, which in growing old taste not sourly and mustily. [70] Man marcheth entirely towards his increase and decrease.
View but the wisdom of Socrates and diverse circumstances of his condemnation, I dare say he something lent himself unto it by prevarication, of purpose [71]—being so near and at the age of seventy to endure the benumbing of his spirit’s richest pace, and the dimming of his accustomed brightness.
What Metamorphoses have I seen it [72] daily make in diverse of mine acquaintances? It is a powerful malady which naturally and imperceptibly glideth into us. There is required great provision of study, heed, and precaution to avoid the imperfections wherewith it chargeth us, or at least to weaken their further progress. I find that notwithstanding all my entrenchings, [73] by little and little it [74] getteth ground upon me. I hold out as long as I can but know not whither at length it will bring me. Hap what hap will, I am pleased the world knows from what height I tumbled.
Of Three Commerces or Societies 1
3.3
WE MUST not cleave so fast unto our humours and dispositions. Our chiefest sufficiency is to apply ourselves to diverse fashions. It is a being, but not a life, to be tied and bound by necessity to one only course. The goodliest minds are those that have most variety and pliableness in them. Behold an honourable testimony of old Cato: Huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit, ut natum ad id vnum diceres, quodcumque ageret. He had a wit so turnable to all things alike, as one would say he had been only born for that he went about to do. [2]
Were I to dress myself after mine own manner, there is no fashion so good whereto I would be so affected or tied as not to know how to leave and loose it. Life is a motion unequal, irregular, and multiform. It is not to be the friend (less the master) but the slave of oneself to follow incessantly and be so addicted to his inclinations as he cannot stray from them nor wrest them. This I say now, as being extremely pestered with the importunity of my mind, forsomuch as she cannot amuse herself but whereon it is busied, nor employ itself but bent and whole. How light soever the subject is one gives it, it willingly amplifieth and wire-draws [3] the same, even unto the highest pitch of toil. Its idleness is therefore a painful trade unto me and offensive to my health. Most wits have need of extravagant stuff to un-benumb and exercise themselves; mine hath need of it rather to settle and continue itself. Vitia otii negotio discucienda sunt. The vices of idleness should be shaken off with business. [4] For the most laborious care and principal study of it is to study itself.
Books are one of those businesses that seduce it [5] from study. At the first thoughts that present themselves, it rouseth up and makes proof of all the vigor it hath. It exerciseth its function sometimes toward force, sometimes toward order and comeliness; it rangeth, moderates, and fortifieth. It hath of itself to awaken the faculties of it. Nature having given it, as unto all other, matter of its own for advantage, subjects fit enough whereon to devise and determine.
Meditation is a large and powerful study to such as vigorously can taste and employ themselves therein. I had rather forge than furnish my mind. There is no office or occupation either weaker or stronger than that of entertaining of one’s thoughts according to the mind, whatsoever it be. The greatest make it their vacation. [6] Quibus viuere est cogitare, to whom it is all one to live and to meditate. [7] Nature hath also favoured it with this privilege, that there is nothing we can do so long, nor action whereso we give ourselves more ordinarily and easily. It is the work of gods (sayeth Aristotle) whence both their happiness and ours proceedeth. Reading serves me especially to awake my conceit [8] by diverse objects to busy my judgement, not my memory.
Few entertainments, [9] then, stay me without vigour and force. ’Tis true that courtesy and beauty possess me, as much or more, than weight and depth. And because I slumber in all other communications and lend but the superficial parts of my attention unto them, it often befalleth me in such kind of weak and absurd discourses (discourses of countenance [10]) to blurt out and answer ridiculous toys and fond absurdities, unworthy a child, or willfully to hold my peace, therewithal more foolishly and incivilly. I have a kind of raving, fanciful behaviour that retireth me into myself and, on the other side, a gross and childish ignorance of many ordinary things. By means of which two qualities,
I have in my days committed five or six as sottish tricks as any one whosoever, which to my derogation may be reported.
But to follow my purpose, this harsh complexion [11] of mine makes me nice [12] in conversing with men (whom I must pick and cull out for the nonce [13]) and unfit for common actions. We live and negotiate with the people. If their behaviour importune us, if we disdain to lend ourselves to base and vulgar spirits, which often are as regular as those of a finer mould—and all wisdom is foolish that is not conformed to common insipience [14]—we are no longer to intermeddle either with our or other men’s affairs, and both [in] public and private forsake [15] such kind of people.
The least wrested [16] and most natural proceedings of our mind are the fairest; the best occupations, those which are least forced. Good God, how good an office doth wisdom unto those whose desires she squareth according to [17] their power! There is no science [18] more profitable. As one may was the burden [19] and favoured saying of Socrates: a sentence of great substance. We must address and stay our desires to things most easy and nearest. Is it not a fond-peevish humour in me to disagree from a thousand to whom my fortune joineth me, without whom I cannot live, to adhere unto one or two that are out of my commerce and conversation, or rather to a fantastical conceit or fanciful desire for a thing I cannot obtain? My soft behaviours and mild manners, enemies to all sharpness and foes to all bitterness, may easily have discharged me from envy and contention. To be beloved, I say not; but not to be hated, never did man give more occasion. But the coldness of my conversation hath with reason robbed me of the good will of many, which may be excused if they interpret the same to other or worse sense.
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