In Praise of Folly
a charge on our father Adam to refrain from _eating of the tree of
knowledge_ except he had thereby forewarned that the taste of knowledge
would be the bane of all happiness. St. Paul says expressly, that
_knowledge puffeth up, i.e._, it is fatal and poisonous. In pursuance
whereunto St. Bernard interprets that _exceeding high mountain_ whereon
the devil had erected his seat to have been the mountain of knowledge.
And perhaps this may be another argument which ought not to be omitted,
namely, that Folly is acceptable, at least excusable, with the gods,
inasmuch, as they easily pass by the heedless failures of fools, while
the miscarriages of such as are known to have more wit shall very hardly
obtain a pardon; nay, when a wise man comes to sue for an acquitment
from any guilt, he must shroud himself under the patronage and pretext
of Folly. For thus in the twelfth of Numbers Aaron entreats Moses to
stay the leprosy of his sister Miriam, saying, _alas, my Lord, I beseech
thee lay not the sin upon us wherein we have done foolishly_. Thus,
when David spared Saul's life, when he found him sleeping in a tent
of Hachilah, not willing to _stretch forth his hand against the Lord's
anointed, Saul excuses his former severity by confessing, _Behold, I
have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly_. David also himself in
much the same form begs the remission of his sin from God Almighty with
this prayer, _Lord, I pray thee take away the iniquity of thy servant,
for I have done very foolishly_; as if he could not have hoped otherwise
to have his pardon granted except he petitioned for it under the covert
and mitigation of Folly. The agreeable practice of our Saviour is
yet more convincing, who, when he hung upon the cross, prayed for his
enemies, saying, _Father, forgive them_, urging no other plea in their
behalf than that of their ignorance, _for they know not what they do_.
To the same effect St. Paul in his first epistle to Timothy acknowledges
he had been a blasphemer and a persecutor, _But (saith he) _I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief_. Now what is the meaning
of the phrase [_I did it ignorantly_] but only this? My fault was
occasioned from a misinformed Folly, not from a deliberate malice. What
signifies [_I obtained mercy_] but only that I should not otherwise have
obtained it had not folly and ignorance been my vindication? To the same
purpose is that other passage in the mysterious Psalmist, which I forgot
to mention in its proper place, namely, _Oh remember not the sins and
offences of my youth!_ the word which we render offences, is in Latin
_ignorantias_, ignorances. Observe, the two things he alleges in his
excuse are, first, his rawness of age, to which Folly and want of
experience are constant attendants: and secondly, his ignorances,
expressed in the plural number for an enhancement and aggravation of his
foolishness.
But that I may not wear out this subject too far, to draw now towards a
conclusion, it is observable that the christian religion seems to have
some relation to Folly, and no alliance at all with wisdom. Of the truth
whereof, if you desire farther proof than my bare word you may please,
first, to consider, that children, women, old men, and fools, led as
it were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant in
repairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in the
performance of the several parts of divine service; nay, the first
promulgators of the gospel, and the first converts to Christianity, were
men of plainness and simplicity, wholly unacquainted with secular policy
or learning.
Farther, there are none more silly, or nearer their wits' end, than
those who are too superstitiously religious: they are profusely lavish
in their charity; they invite fresh affronts by an easy forgiveness of
past injuries; they suffer themselves to be cheated and imposed upon by
laying claim to the innocence of the dove; they make it the interest of
no person to oblige them, because they will love, and _do good to their
enemies_, as much as to the most endearing friends; they banish all
pleasure, feeding upon the penance of watching, weeping, fasting, sorrow
and reproach; they value not their lives, but with St. Paul, _wish to be
dissolved_, and covet the fiery trial of martyrdom: in a word, they seem
altogether so destitute of common sense, that their soul seems already
separated from the dead and inactive body. And what else can we imagine
all this to be than downright madness? It is the less strange therefore
that at the feast of Pentecost the apostles should be thought drunk with
new wine; or that St. Paul was censured by Festus to have been beside
himself.
And since I have had the confidence to go thus far, I shall venture yet
a little forwarder, and be so bold as to say thus much more: all that
final happiness, which christians, through so many rubs and briars of
difficulties, contend for, is at last no better than a sort of folly
and madness. This, no question, will be thought extravagantly spoke; but
consider awhile, and deliberately state the case.
First, then, the christians so far agree with the Platonists as to
believe that the body is no better than a prison or dungeon for the
confinement of the soul. That therefore, while the soul is shackled
to the walls of flesh, her soaring wings are impeded, and all her
enlivening faculties clogged and fettered by the gross particles of
matter, so that she can neither freely range after, nor, when happily
overtook, can quietly contemplate her proper object of truth.
Farther, Plato defines philosophy to be the meditation of death, because
the one performs the same office with the other; namely, withdraws the
mind from all visible and corporeal objects; therefore while the soul
does patiently actuate the several organs and members of the body, so
long is a man accounted of a good and sound disposition; but when the
soul, weary of her confinement, struggles to break jail, and fly beyond
her cage of flesh and blood, then a man is censured at least for being
magotty and crack-brained; nay, if there be any defect in the external
organs it is then termed downright madness. And yet many times persons
thus affected shall have prophetic ecstacies of foretelling things to
come, shall in a rapture talk languages they never before learned, and
seem in all things actuated by somewhat divine and extraordinary; and
all this, no doubt, is only the effect of the soul's being more released
from its engagement to the body, whereby it can with less impediment
exert the energy of life and motion. From hence, no question, has sprung
an observation of like nature, confirmed now into a settled opinion,
that _some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging,
arrive to the height of prophetic spirits_.
If this disorder arise from an intemperance in religion, and too high a
strain of devotion, though it be of a somewhat differing sort, yet it is
so near akin to the former, that a great part of mankind apprehend it as
a mere madness; especially when persons of that superstitious humour
are so pragmatical and singular as to separate and live apart as it
were from all the world beside: so as they seem to have experienced
what Plato dreams to have happened between some, who, enclosed in a
dark cave, did only ruminate on the ideas and abstracted speculations
of entities; and one other of their company, who had got abroad into the
open light, and at his return tells them what a blind mistake they
had lain under; that he had seen the substance of what their dotage of
imagination reached only in shadow; that therefore he could not but pity
and condole their deluding dreams, while they on the other side no less
bewail his frenzy, and turn him out of their society for a lunatic and
madman.
Thus the vulgar are wholly taken up with those objects that are most
familiar to their senses, beyond which they are apt to think all is but
fairy-land; while those that are devoutly religious scorn to set their
thoughts or affections on any things below, but mount their soul to
the pursuit of incorporeal and invisible beings. The former, in their
marshalling the requisites of happiness, place riches in the front, the
endowments of the body in the next rank, and leave the accomplishments
of the soul to bring up the rear; nay, some will scarce believe there is
any such thing at all as the soul, because they cannot literally see a
reason of their faith; while the other pay their first fruits of service
to that most simple and incomprehensible Being, God, employ themselves
next in providing for the happiness of that which comes nearest to
their immortal soul, being not at all mindful of their corrupt bodily
carcases, and slighting money as the dirt and rubbish of the world; or
if at any time some urging occasions require them to become entangled
in secular affairs, they do it with regret, and a kind of ill-will,
observing what St. Paul advises his _Corinthians, having wives, and yet
being as though they had none; buying, and yet remaining as though they
possessed not_.
There are between these two sorts of persons many differences in several
other respects. As first, though all the senses have the same mutual
relation to the body, yet some are more gross than others; as those five
corporeal ones, of touching, hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting, whereas
some again are more refined, and less adulterated with matter; such are
the memory, the understanding, and the will. Now the mind will be always
most ready and expedite at that to which it is naturally most inclined.
Hence is it that a pious soul, employing all its power and abilities in
the pressing after such things as are farthest removed from sense, is
perfectly stupid and brutish in the management of any worldly affairs;
while on the other side, the vulgar are so intent upon their business
and employment, that they have not time to bestow one poor thought upon
a future eternity. From such ardour of divine meditation was it that
Saint Bernard in his study drank oil instead of wine, and yet his
thoughts were so taken up that he never observed the mistake.
Farther, among the passions of the soul, some have a greater
communication with the body than others; as lust, the desire of meat and
sleep, anger, pride, and envy; with these the pious man is in continual
war, and irreconcile-able enmity, while the vulgar cherish and foment
them as the best comforts of life.
There are other affections of a middle nature, common and innate to
every man; such are love to one's country, duty to parents, love to
children, kindness to friends, and such like; to these the vulgar pay
some respect, but the religious endeavour to supplant and eradicate from
their soul, except they can raise and sublimate them to the most refined
pitch of virtue; so as to love or honour their parents, not barely under
that character (for what did they do more than generate a body? nay,
even for that we are primarily beholden to God, the first parent of all
mankind), but as good men only, upon whom is imprinted the lively image
of that divine nature, which they esteem as the chief and only good,
beyond whom nothing deserves to be beloved, nothing desired.
By the same rule they measure all the other offices or duties of life;
in each of which, whatever is earthly and corporeal, shall, if not
wholly rejected, yet at least be put behind what faith makes the
_substance of things not seen_. Thus in the sacraments, and all other
acts of religion, they make a difference between the outward appearance
or body of them, and the more inward soul or spirit. As to instance, in
fasting, they think it very ineffectual to abstain from flesh, or debar