In Praise of Folly
were stopped at a purgatory by the way. I cannot but wish that I might
wholly change my character, or at least that some grave divine, in
my stead, might rehearse this part of the subject for me; for truly I
suspect that somebody will accuse me of plundering the closets of those
reverend men, while I pretend to so much divinity, as must appear in my
following discourse. Yet however, it may not seem strange, that after
so long and frequent a converse, I have gleaned some scraps from the
divines; since Horace's wooden god by hearing his master read Homer,
learned some words of Greek; and Lucian's cock, by long attention, could
readily understand what any man spoke. But now to the purpose, wishing
myself success.
Ecclesiastes doth somewhere confess that there are an infinite number of
fools. Now when he speaks of an infinite number, what does he else but
imply, that herein is included the whole race of mankind, except some
very few, which I know not whether ever any one had yet the happiness to
see?
The prophet Jeremiah speaks yet more plainly in his tenth chapter, where
he saith, that _Every man is brutish in his knowledge_. He just before
attributes wisdom to God alone, saying, that the _Wise men of the
nations are altogether brutish and foolish_. And in the preceding
chapter he gives this seasonable caution, _Let not the wise man glory
in his wisdom_: the reason is obvious, because no man hath truly any
whereof to glory. But to return to Ecclesiastes, when he saith, _Vanity
of vanities, all is vanity_, what else can we imagine his meaning to
be, than that our whole life is nothing but one continued interlude of
Folly? This confirms that assertion of Tully, which is delivered in that
noted passage we but just now mentioned, namely, that _All places swarm
with fools_. Farther, what does the son of Sirach mean when he saith in
Ecclesiasticus, that the _Fool is changed as the moon_, while the
_Wise man is fixed as the sun_, than only to hint out the folly of all
mankind; and that the name of wise is due to no other but the all-wise
God? for all interpreters by Moon understand mankind, and by Sun that
fountain of all light, the Almighty. The same sense is implied in that
saying of our Saviour in the gospel, _There is none good but one, that
is God_: for if whoever is not wise must be consequently a fool, and if,
according to the Stoics, every man be wise so far only as he is good,
the meaning of the text must be, all mortals are unavoidably fools; and
there is none wise but one, that is God. Solomon also in the fifteenth
chapter of his proverbs hath this expression, _Folly is joy to him
that is destitute of wisdom_; plainly intimating, that the wise man is
attended with grief and vexation, while the foolish only roll in delight
and pleasure. To the same purpose is that saying of his in the first
chapter of Ecclesiastes, _In much wisdom is much grief; and he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow_. Again, it is confessed by the
same preacher in the seventh chapter of the same book, _That the heart
of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in
the house of mirth_. This author himself had never attained to such a
portion of wisdom, if he had not applied himself to a searching out the
frailties and infirmities of human nature; as, if you believe not me,
may appear from his own words in his first chapter, _I gave my heart to
know wisdom, and to know madness and folly_; where it is worthy to be
observed that as to the order of words, Folly for its advantage is
put in the last place. Thus Ecclesiastes wrote, and thus indeed did an
ecclesiastical method require; namely, that what has the precedence in
dignity should come hindmost in rank and order, according to the tenor
of that evangelical precept, _The last shall be first, and the first
shall be last_. And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was author of
the holy book which bears that name) in the forty-fourth chapter, the
excellency of folly above wisdom is positively acknowledged; the very
words I shall not cite, till I have the advantage of an answer to a
question I am proposing, this way of interrogating being frequently made
use of by Plato in his dialogues between Socrates, and other disputants:
I ask you then, what is it we usually hoard and lock up, things of
greater esteem and value, or those which are more common, trite, and
despicable? Why are you so backward in making an answer? Since you are
so shy and reserved, I'll take the Greek proverb for a satisfactory
reply; namely, _Foul water is thrown down the sink_; which saying, that
no person may slight it, may be convenient to advertise that it comes
from no meaner an author than that oracle of truth, Aristotle himself.
And indeed there is no one on this side Bedlam so mad as to throw out
upon the dunghill his gold and jewels, but rather all persons have a
close repository to preserve them in, and secure them under all the
locks, bolts, and bars, that either art can contrive, or fears suggest:
whereas the dirt, pebbles, and oyster-shells, that lie scattered in the
streets, ye trample upon, pass by, and take no notice of.
If then what is more valuable be coffered up, and what less so lies
unregarded, it follows, that accordingly Folly should meet with a
greater esteem than wisdom, because that wise author advises us to the
keeping close and concealing the first, and exposing or laying open the
other: as take him now in his own words, _Better is he that hideth his
folly than him that hideth his wisdom_. Beside, the sacred text does oft
ascribe innocence and sincerity to fools, while the wise man is apt to
be a haughty scorner of all such as he thinks or censures to have less
wit than himself: for so I understand that passage in the tenth chapter
of Ecclesiastes, _When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom
faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool._ Now what
greater argument of candour or ingenuity can there be, than to demean
himself equal with all others, and not think their deserts any way
inferior to his own. Folly is no such scandalous attribute, but that
the wise Agur was not ashamed to confess it, in the thirtieth chapter
of Proverbs: _Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the
understanding of a man_, Nay, St. Paul himself, that great doctor of the
Gentiles, writing to his Corinthians, readily owns the name, saying, _If
any man speak as a fool, I am more_; as if to have been less so had
been a reproach and disgrace. But perhaps I may be censured for
misinterpreting this text by some modern annotators, who like crows
pecking at one another's eyes, find fault, and correct all that went
before them, pretend each their own glosses to contain the only true and
genuine explication; among whom my Erasmus (whom I cannot but mention
with respect) may challenge the second place, if not the precedency.
This citation (say they) is purely impertinent; the meaning of the
apostle is far different from what you dream of: he would not have these
words so understood, as if he desired to be thought a greater fool
than the rest, but only when he had before said, _Are they ministers of
Christ? so am I_: as if the equalling himself herein to others had been
too little, he adds, _I am more_, thinking a bare equality not enough,
unless he were even superior to those he compares himself with. This
he would have to be believed as true; yet lest it might be thought
offensive, as bordering too much on arrogance and conceit, he tempers
and alleviates it by the covert of Folly. _I speak_ (says he) _as a
fool_, knowing it to be the peculiar privilege of fools to speak the
truth, without giving offence. But what St. Paul's thoughts were when he
wrote this, I leave for them to determine. In my own judgment at least
I prefer the opinion of the good old tun-bellied divines, with whom
it's safer and more creditable to err, than to be in the right with
smattering, raw, novices.
Nor indeed should any one mind the late critics any more than the
senseless chattering of a daw: especially since one of the most eminent
of them (whose name I advisedly conceal, lest some of our wits should
be taunting him with the Greek proverb, magisterially and dogmatically
descanting upon his text [_are they the ministers of Christ?_ ]) I speak
as a fool. I am more makes a distinct chapter, and (which without good
store of logic he could never have done) adds a new section, and then
gives this paraphrase, which I shall verbatim recite, that you may have
his words materially, as well as formally his sense (for that's one
of their babbling distinctions). [_I speak as a fool_] that is, if the
equalling myself to those false apostles would have been construed as
the vaunt of a fool, I will willingly be accounted a greater fool, by
taking place of them, and openly pleading, that as to their ministry, I
not only come up even with them, but outstrip and go beyond them: though
this same commentator a little after, as it were forgetting what he had
just before delivered, tacks about and shifts to another interpretation.
But why do I insist upon any one particular example, when in general
it is the public charter of all divines, to mould and bend the sacred
oracles till they comply with their own fancy, spreading them (as Heaven
by its Creator) like a curtain, closing together, or drawing them back,
as they please? Thus indeed St. Paul himself minces and mangles some
citations he makes use of, and seems to wrest them to a different sense
from what they were first intended for, as is confessed by the great
linguist, St. Hierom.
Thus when that apostle saw at Athens the inscription of an altar, he
draws from it an argument for the proof of the christian religion; but
leaving out great part of the sentence, which perhaps if fully recited
might have prejudiced his cause, he mentions only the two last words
viz., _To the unknown God_; and this too not without alteration, for the
whole inscription runs thus: _To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa,
to all foreign and unknown Gods_.
'Tis an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant you, that our
young divines, by leaving out four or five words in a place, and putting
a false construction on the rest, can make any passage serviceable to
their own purpose; though from the coherence of what went before, or
follows after, the genuine meaning appears to be either wide enough, or
perhaps quite contradictory to what they would thrust and impose upon
it. In which knack the divines are grown now so expert, that the lawyers
themselves begin to be jealous of an encroachment upon what was formerly
their sole privilege and practice. And indeed what can they despair of
proving, since the fore-mentioned commentator (I had almost blundered
out his name), but that I am restrained by fear of the same Greek
proverbial sarcasm) did upon a text of St. Luke put an interpretation,
no more agreeable to the meaning of the place, than one contrary quality
is to another? The passage is this, when Judas's treachery was preparing
to be executed, and accordingly it seemed requisite that all the
disciples should be provided to guard and secure their assaulted master,
our Saviour, that he might piously caution them against reliance for
his delivery on any worldly strength, asks them, whether in all their
embassy they lacked anything, when he had sent them out so unfurnished
for the performance of a long journey, that they had not so much as
shoes to defend their feet from the injuries of flints and thorns, or
a scrip to carry a meal's meat in; and when they had answered that they
lacked nothing, he adds, _But now he that hath a purse let him take