Ebrietatis Encomium Part 15

Besides, "[4]Is not the illusion we enjoy as valuable as the good we possess? M. Fontenelle makes a very excellent observation hereupon in these verses[5]:--

"Souvent en s'attachant a des fantomes vains Notre raison seduite avec plaisir s'egare.

Elle-meme jouit des objets qu'elle a feints.

Et cette illusion pour quelque tems repare Le defaut des vrais biens que la Nature avare N'a pas accordez aux humains."

Often enchanted by the 'luring charms Of phantoms gay, our reason all seduc'd, With pleasure roams thro' endless desarts wild, Enjoys the objects which herself has form'd.

And this illusion for some time repairs The want of real joys, which n.i.g.g.ard Nature Never has granted to unhappy man.

"Enjoyment," says Montaigne[6], "and possession, belong princ.i.p.ally to imagination, which embraces more eagerly that which it is in pursuit of, than that which we have in our power."

And certainly, one may p.r.o.nounce them happy, who thus amuse themselves, and believe themselves to be so. And indeed, when a man is so far gone in this persuasion, every thing that is alleged to the contrary is rejected as a fable.

But to shew, at present, the reality, if one may say so, of mere illusion, we need go no farther than the poets, who are certainly the happiest mortals living in that respect.

To instance no more, there's Mr. --------, who would fain be a rhimer, and that is his folly; but though the poor man, for his insipid verses, and improper epithets, richly deserves our pity, yet is he wonderfully pleased with his performances, and with a great deal of tranquillity mounts up Parna.s.sus, in his own conceit, in loftier tracts than Virgil or Theocritus ever knew. But, alas! what would become of him, if some audacious person should dare unbind his eyes, and make him see his weak and graceless lines, which, however smoothly they may run, are, at best, but exquisitely dull; contain terms that have no meaning in them, and have no other ornament, but unintelligible jingle, and initial letters?

How would he curse the day which deprived his senseless soul of that happy error that so much charmed his thoughts, and amused his imagination?

What is here said of the poets is applicable to all mankind; and so a man, whom any one should undertake to persuade, that the mirth and joy inspired by wine is chimerical, would do well to answer him, after the manner as a certain madman did the doctor that cured him. The story is this:--

Once upon a time a certain bigot, otherwise a man of sense, had his brain a little touched with whimsies, and continually fancied he heard the heavenly music of the blessed spirits. At last a physician, very expert in his profession, cured him, either by his skill, or by chance, no matter which; but when he came to demand his fees; for what? says the other, in a violent pa.s.sion, by your d.a.m.ned slip-slops and h.e.l.lish art, you have robbed me of my Paradise, though you have cured me of my error.

This I borrow from Boileau[7], as he did from Horace[8].

"[9]There are," says Pere Bouhours, writing to Bussi Rabutin, "agreeable errors, which are much more valuable than that which the Spaniards called desengano, and which might be called in our language disabus.e.m.e.nt, if this word, which one of our best writers has ventured upon, had been received."

We shall conclude with M. de Sacy[10], "That it is not always doing mankind an agreeable service to dissipate their illusions." And we say of those who taste those satisfactions wine inspires, what M. Bayle says very pleasantly of news-mongers who are still in hopes of what they wish for. "They are[11]," says he, "the least unhappy, whatever happens.

There is a great deal of reality in their agreeable sentiments, how chimerical soever their foundation may be; so that they do not willingly suffer themselves to be disabused; and they sometimes say, when one gives them reasons why they should believe the news, that makes them so joyful, is doubtful or absolutely false, Why do you envy us the pleasures we enjoy? Do not disturb our entertainment, or rob us of what we hold most dear. A friend more opposite to error than charity is a very troublesome reasoner; and if he meddles with their chimeras they will endeavour to do him a diskindness."

We come now to another objection, and that is, that this joy inspired by wine is but of a very short continuance; and the pleasure one tastes in so short a s.p.a.ce, dearly repaid with a long and tedious uneasiness.

_Ebrietas unius horae hilarem insaniam longo temporis tedio pensat._

I own that it is a very great misery, that our pleasures are so short: and the shorter too, the more exquisite they are. And, perhaps, this may be a kindness to us, since some are so superlatively so, that should they continue a much longer s.p.a.ce, mankind could not support themselves under these ecstacies. But be this as it will, can we make them otherwise than they are? We must therefore have patience, and take them as we find them. In short, there is no present happiness in the world; all we can do, is to be contented with the present, not uneasy at what is to come, but sweeten with an equality of soul the bitter miseries of human life.

[Footnote 1: Lett. xvi. sur la Crit. de Calvin, p. 516.]

[[Footnote 1a: Virgil, _Eclogues_ IV.5.]]

[Footnote 2: Fontenelle Dial. d'Elisab. et du D. d'Alencon.]

[Footnote 3: Fontenelle Dial. des Morts de Callirh. et de Paulin.]

[Footnote 4: Nov. Dial. des Dieux. p. 68.]

[Footnote 5: Poesies Pastor.]

[Footnote 6: Essais, lib. iii. ch. 9.]

[Footnote 7: Satire iv. M. la Vayer.]

[Footnote 8: Lib. ii. ep. 2.]

[Footnote 9: Lett. de Rab. t. iii. lett. 63.]

[Footnote 10: De l'Amitie, p. 2.]

[Footnote 11: Rep. aux Quest. d'un Prov. t. i. ch. 20.]

CHAP. XXII.

AN ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION, THAT ONE LOSES ONE'S REASON IN GETTING DRUNK.

It is objected here, that reason ought to be the motive of all our actions; and, of consequence, that we ought not voluntarily to lose it.

To this objection I answer several ways:-- First and foremost then, I say, people do well to talk to us so much of reason, when almost all mankind acts without reason, so that it may pa.s.s for a thing that has no manner of existence but in the imagination. We shall prove this from M. Bayle. "[1]We are defined," says he, "a reasonable animal. A very fine definition indeed, when none of us do any thing but without reason.

I a.s.sure you, sir, that one may say of reason, what Euripides said in the beginning of one of his tragedies, and which afterwards was corrected, on account of the murmurings of the people. O Jupiter, for of thee I know nothing but only the name! In relation to the faculty I am talking of, we know nothing more of it than that, so that we may well laugh at the complaints of that heathen philosopher, who found that reason was a very troublesome present sent to us by the G.o.ds for our ruin; for he supposed, that reason busied herself in our affairs, whereas the truth of it is she never meddles in the least with them.

We act nothing but with prejudice, by instinct, by self-love, and the sudden starts of a thousand pa.s.sions, which drag and turn our reason as they will, insomuch that one may most justly define the principle which rules and domineers over us, a ma.s.s of prejudices and pa.s.sions which knows how to draw consequences. I remember to have seen a man, who having never heard mention made of the Cotta of Cicero, said nevertheless as well as he, that it would have been much better that G.o.d had not made us reasonable, since reason poisons all our affairs, and makes us ingenious to afflict ourselves, upon which a certain person said to him in raillery, That he had what he desired; that he had received so small a share of reason that it was not worth his while to complain. For my part, I turned the thing otherwise, that people were much in the wrong to murmur against reason, since it is not that which guides us; and that it is not too possible it should, without overthrowing the order which has reigned so long in the world. The learned Erasmus, continued I, deserves the highest praise in this respect; he has written The Praise of Folly, wherein he shews that she sheds every where her influence, and without her, the whole world would in a short time be turned topsy turvy. I make no doubt, sir, but you know the merit of that work. The author speaks, though in a merry manner, the greatest truths in the world; and I do not know whether he believed himself as profound a philosopher, as he really was in that ingenious satire."

Secondly, This is not all, "[2]It is sometimes necessary, for the general good of the world, to follow prejudices, popular errors, and the blind instincts of nature, rather than the distinct ideas of reason."

Mr. Bayle extends himself farther on this idea in another place[3], which I shall here insert. "Errors," says he, "irregular pa.s.sions, and unreasonable prejudices, are so necessary to the world to make it a theatre of that prodigious diversity of events which make one admire his providence. So that he who would reduce men to do nothing but according to the distinct ideas of reason, would ruin civil society. If man was reduced to this condition, he would have no longer any desire of glory; and having no longer that desire, is it not true, that then mankind would be like ice? I say, he would have no desire of glory, for right reason shews us, that we should not make our happiness depend on the judgment of other men; and consequently, that we should not toil and fatigue ourselves, to make other people say this, or that, of us----.

The earnest desire of being praised after death is an instinct of morality that G.o.d has impressed in the mind of man, to keep up society.

And it is certain, that earnest desire has been the cause of the greatest events; and this ought to instruct us that the world stands in need of a great many instincts, which, examined according to the ideas of our reason, are ridiculous and absurd. For there is nothing so opposite to reason as to torment ourselves in this life, that we may be praised after we are dead, since neither philosophy, nor experience, nor faith, nor any thing whatsover, makes it appear, that the praises given us after death can do us any good. It would be a thing uneasy to the heart of man, if we did nothing but according to the light of reason; and how many designs would come to nothing at the same time?"

Thirdly, Besides, reason very often serves for nothing but to make us wretched. "The happiness of man is never the work of reason." Of all our evils reason is often the worst; it frightens us in the full career of our pleasures, and with importunate remorses comes to bridle our fleet desires. The horrid thing reserves for us most cruel and matchless rigours. It is like a troublesome pedant one is forced to hear, who always growls, but never touches us, and frequently like D------, and such like venerable impertinents, lose the time they employ in predication.

"If there be any happiness[4]," says Fontenelle, "that reason produces, it is like that sort of health which cannot be maintained but by the force of physic, and which is ever most feeble and uncertain." And in another place he cries out, "[5]Can we not have sound sight without being at the same time wretched and uneasy? Is there any thing gay but error? And is reason made for any thing else but to torment and kill us?" "[6]What cause have not men to bewail their wretched condition?

Nature furnishes them but with a very few things that are agreeable, and their reason teaches them how to enjoy them yet less." "[7]And why has Nature, in giving us pa.s.sions which are sufficient to make us happy, given us reason, that will not suffer us to be so?"

It was this same troublesome reason that made Sophocles say, "[8]It is very sweet to live, but none of your wisdom, away with her, she spoils life."

Vaunt less thy reason, O unhappy man!

Behold how useless is this gift celestial, For which, they say, thou should'st the rest disdain.

Feeble as thou wert in thy infant days, Like thee she mov'd, she totter'd, and was weak.

When age mature arriv'd, and call'd to pleasures, Slave to thy sense, she still was so to thee, When fifty winters, Fate had let thee count; Pregnant with thousand cares and worlds of woes, The hateful issue in thy breast she threw, And now grown old thou loosest her for ever.

Before I end this chapter, let every body take notice, that if for having spoken so much against reason, any one should say, that it is a plain sign the author has none; and that there are a great many others, who, in the words of M. La Motte[9], will be apt to say:--

"Heureux cent fois l'auteur avec qui l'on s...o...b..ie Qui nous offre un charmant poison, Et nous a.s.sociant a sa douce folie Nous affranchit de la raison."

Happy the author, whose bewitching style, Life's tedious minutes can beguile, Makes us, with him, forget uneasy care, And not remember what we are.

Who by a charm, which no one can withstand, Enchanting poison can command, Can make us share his pleasing foolery, And from dull reason set us free.

And I shall not be wanting to answer in the words of the same gentleman:

"[10]Buveurs brisez le joug d'une raison trop fiere Eteignez son triste flambeau D'autres enseignent l'art d'augmenter sa lumiere Mais l'art de l'eteindre est plus beau."