In Praise of Folly
proposal: both these are banished and cashiered by Folly, and in their
stead such a habit of fool-hardiness introduced, as mightily contributes
to the success of all enterprizes. Farther, if you will have wisdom
taken in the other sense, of being a right judgment of things, you shall
see how short wise men fall of it in this acceptation.
First, then, it is certain that all things, like so many Janus's, carry
a double face, or rather bear a false aspect, most things being really
in themselves far different from what they are in appearance to others:
so as that which at first blush proves alive, is in truth dead; and
that again which appears as dead, at a nearer view proves to be alive:
beautiful seems ugly, wealthy poor, scandalous is thought creditable,
prosperous passes for unlucky, friendly for what is most opposite, and
innocent for what is hurtful and pernicious. In short, if we change the
tables, all things are found placed in a quite different posture from
what just before they appeared to stand in.
If this seem too darkly and unintelligibly expressed, I will explain it
by the familiar instance of some great king or prince, whom every one
shall suppose to swim in a luxury of wealth, and to be a powerful lord
and master; when, alas, on the one hand he has poverty of spirit enough
to make him a mere beggar, and on the other side he is worse than a
galley-slave to his own lusts and passions.
If I had a mind farther to expatiate, I could enlarge upon several
instances of like nature, but this one may at present suffice.
Well, but what is the meaning (will some say) of all this? Why, observe
the application. If any one in a play-house be so impertinent and rude
as to rifle the actors of their borrowed clothes, make them lay down the
character assumed, and force them to return to their naked selves, would
not such a one wholly discompose and spoil the entertainment? And would
he not deserve to be hissed and thrown stones at till the pragmatical
fool could learn better manners? For by such a disturbance the whole
scene will be altered: such as acted the men will perhaps appear to be
women: he that was dressed up for a young brisk lover, will be found a
rough old fellow; and he that represented a king, will remain but a mean
ordinary serving-man. The laying things thus open is marring all the
sport, which consists only in counterfeit and disguise. Now the world is
nothing else but such another comedy, where every one in the tire-room
is first habited suitably to the part he is to act; and as it is
successively their turn, out they come on the stage, where he that now
personates a prince, shall in another part of the same play alter his
dress, and become a beggar, all things being in a mask and particular
disguise, or otherwise the play could never be presented Now if there
should arise any starched, formal don, that would point at the several
actors, and tell how this, that seems a petty god, is in truth worse
than a brute, being made captive to the tyranny of passion; that the
other, who bears the character of a king, is indeed the most slavish of
serving-men, in being subject to the mastership of lust and sensuality;
that a third, who vaunts so much of his pedigree, is no better than
a bastard for degenerating from virtue, which ought to be of greatest
consideration in heraldry, and so shall go on in exposing all the
rest; would not any one think such a person quite frantic, and ripe for
bedlam? For as nothing is more silly than preposterous wisdom, so
is there nothing more indiscreet than an unreasonable reproof. And
therefore he is to be hooted out of all society that will not be
pliable, conformable, and willing to suit his humour with other men's,
remembering the law of clubs and meetings, that he who will not do as
the rest must get him out of the company. And it is certainly one great
degree of wisdom for every one to consider that he is but a man, and
therefore he should not pitch his soaring thoughts beyond the level of
mortality, but imp the wings of his towering ambition, and obligingly
submit and condescend to the weakness of others, it being many times a
piece of complaisance to go out of the road for company's sake.
No (say you), this is a grand piece of Folly: true, but yet all our
living is no more than such kind of fooling: which though it may seem
harsh to assert, yet it is not so strange as true.
For the better making it out it might perhaps be requisite to invoke the
aid of the muses, to whom the poets devoutly apply themselves upon far
more slender occasions. Come then and assist, ye Heliconian lasses,
while I attempt to prove that there is no method for an arrival at
wisdom, and consequently no track to the goal of happiness, without the
instructions and directions of Folly.
And here, in the first place it has been already acknowledged, that all
the passions are listed under my regiment, since this is resolved to be
the only distinction betwixt a wise man and a fool, that this latter
is governed by passion, the other guided by reason: and therefore the
Stoics look upon passions no other than as the infection and malady
of the soul that disorders the constitution of the whole man, and by
putting the spirits into a feverish ferment many times occasion some
mortal distemper. And yet these, however decried, are not only our
tutors to instruct us towards the attainment of wisdom, but even
bolden us likewise, and spur us on to a quicker dispatch of all our
undertakings. This, I suppose, will be stomached by the stoical Seneca,
who pretends that the only emblem of wisdom is the man without passion;
whereas the supposing any person to be so, is perfectly to unman him, or
else transforming him into some fabulous deity that never was, nor
ever will be; nay, to speak more plain, it is but the making him a mere
statue, immoveable, senseless, and altogether inactive. And if this be
their wise man, let them take him to themselves, and remove him into
Plato's commonwealth, the new Atlantis, or some other-like fairy land.
For who would not hate and avoid such a person as should be deaf to all
the dictates of common sense? that should have no more power of love or
pity than a block or stone, that remains heedless of all dangers? that
thinks he can never mistake, but can foresee all contingencies at the
greatest distance, and make provision for the worst presages? that feeds
upon himself and his own thoughts, that monopolises health, wealth,
power, dignity, and all to himself? that loves no man, nor is beloved
of any? that has the impudence to tax even divine providence of ill
contrivance, and proudly grudges, nay, tramples under foot all other
men's reputation; and this is he that is the Stoic's complete wise man.
But prithee what city would choose such a magistrate? what army would be
willing to serve under such a commander? or what woman would be content
with such a do-little husband? who would invite such a guest? or what
servant would be retained by such a master? The most illiterate mechanic
would in all respects be a more acceptable man, who would be frolicsome
with his wife, free with his friends, jovial at a feast, pliable in
converse, and obliging to all company. But I am tired out with this part
of my subject, and so must pass to some other topics.
And now were any one placed on that tower, from whence Jove is fancied
by the poets to survey the world, he would all around discern how many
grievances and calamities our whole life is on every side encompassed
with: how unclean our birth, how troublesome our tendance in the cradle,
how liable our childhood is to a thousand misfortunes, how toilsome and
full of drudgery our riper years, how heavy and uncomfortable our old
age, and lastly, how unwelcome the unavoidableness of death. Farther, in
every course of life how many wracks there may be of torturing diseases,
how many unhappy accidents may casually occur, how many unexpected
disasters may arise, and what strange alterations may one moment
produce? Not to mention such miseries as men are mutually the cause of,
as poverty, imprisonment, slander, reproach, revenge, treachery, malice,
cousenage, deceit, and so many more, as to reckon them all would be as
puzzling arithmetic as the numbering of the sands.
How mankind became environed with such hard circumstances, or what deity
imposed these plagues, as a penance on rebellious mortals, I am not
now at leisure to enquire: but whoever seriously takes them into
consideration must needs commend the valour of the Milesian virgins, who
voluntarily killed themselves to get rid of a troublesome world: and
how many wise men have taken the same course of becoming their own
executioners; among whom, not to mention Diogenes, Xenocrates, Cato,
Cassius, Brutus, and other heroes, the self-denying Chiron is never
enough to be commended; who, when he was offered by Apollo the privilege
of being exempted from death, and living on to the world's end, he
refused the enticing proposal, as deservedly thinking it a punishment
rather than a reward.
But if all were thus wise you see how soon the world would be unpeopled,
and what need there would be of a second Prometheus, to plaister up
the decayed image of mankind. I therefore come and stand in this gap
of danger, and prevent farther mischief; partly by ignorance, partly by
inadvertence; by the oblivion of whatever would be grating to remember,
and the hopes of whatever may be grateful to expect, together palliating
all griefs with an intermixture of pleasure; whereby I make men so far
from being weary of their lives, that when their thread is spun to its
full length, they are yet unwilling to die, and mighty hardly brought
to take their last farewell of their friends. Thus some decrepit old
fellows, that look as hollow as the grave into which they are falling,
that rattle in the throat at every word they speak, that can eat no meat
but what is tender enough to suck, that have more hair on their beard
than they have on their head, and go stooping toward the dust they must
shortly return to; whose skin seems already drest into parchment, and
their bones already dried to a skeleton; these shadows of men shall
be wonderful ambitious of living longer, and therefore fence off the
attacks of death with all imaginable sleights and impostures; one shall
new dye his grey hairs, for fear their colour should betray his age;
another shall spruce himself up in a light periwig; a third shall repair
the loss of his teeth with an ivory set; and a fourth perhaps shall fall
deeply in love with a young girl, and accordingly court her with as much
of gaiety and briskness as the liveliest spark in the whole town: and
we cannot but know, that for an old man to marry a young wife without a
portion, to be a cooler to other men's lust, is grown so common, that it
is become the a-la-mode of the times. And what is yet more comical, you
shall have some wrinkled old women, whose very looks are a sufficient
antidote to lechery, that shall be canting out, _Ah, life is a sweet
thing_, and so run a caterwauling, and hire some strong-backed stallions
to recover their almost lost sense of feeling; and to set themselves
off the better, they shall paint and daub their faces, always stand
a tricking up themselves at their looking-glass, go naked-necked,
bare-breasted, be tickled at a smutty jest, dance among the young girls,
write love-letters, and do all the other little knacks of decoying
hot-blooded suitors; and in the meanwhile, however they are laughed at,
they enjoy themselves to the full, live up to their hearts' desire, and
want for nothing that may complete their happiness. As for those that