BAMBABEF.--We must imitate the Supreme Being, who does not show us things as they are. He makes us see the sun with a diameter of two or three feet, although it is a million of times larger than the earth. He makes us see the moon and the stars affixed to one and the same blue surface, while they are at different elevations; he chooses that a square tower should appear round to us at a distance; he chooses that fire should appear to us to be hot, although it is neither hot nor cold; in short, he surrounds us with errors, suitable to our nature.
WHANG.--What you call error is not so. The sun, such as it is, placed at millions of millions of lis from our globe, is not that which we see, that which we really perceive: we perceive only the sun which is painted on our retina, at a determinate angle. Our eyes were not given us to know sizes and distances: to know these, other aids and other operations are necessary.
Bambabef seemed much astonished at this position. Whang, being very patient, explained to him the theory of optics; and Bambabef, having some conception, was convinced by the demonstrations of the disciple of Confucius. He then resumed in these terms: BAMBABEF.--If God does not, as I thought, deceive us by the ministry of our senses, you will at least acknowledge that our physicians are constantly deceiving children for their good. They tell them that they are giving them sugar, when in reality they are giving them rhubarb. I, a fakir, may then deceive the people, who are as ignorant as children.
WHANG.--I have two sons; I have never deceived them. When they have been sick, I have said to them: "Here is a nauseous medicine; you must have the courage to take it; if it were pleasant, it would injure you." I have never suffered their nurses and tutors to make them afraid of ghosts, goblins, and witches. I have thereby made them wise and courageous citizens.
BAMBABEF.--The people are not born so happily as your family.
WHANG.--Men all nearly resemble one another; they are born with the same dispositions. Their nature ought not to be corrupted.
BAMBABEF.--We teach them errors, I own; but it is for their good. We make them believe that if they do not buy our blessed nails, if they do not expiate their sins by giving us money, they will, in another life, become post-horses, dogs, or lizards. This intimidates them, and they become good people.
WHANG.--Do you not see that you are perverting these poor folks? There are among them many more than you think there are who reason, who make a jest of your miracles and your superstitions; who see very clearly that they will not be turned into lizards, nor into post-horses. What is the consequence? They have good sense enough to perceive that you talk to them very impertinently; but they have not enough to elevate themselves to a religion pure and untrammelled by superstition like ours. Their passions make them think there is no religion, because the only one that is taught them is ridiculous: thus you become guilty of all the vices into which they plunge.
BAMBABEF.--Not at all, for we teach them none but good morals.
WHANG.--The people would stone you if you taught impure morals. Men are so constituted that they like very well to do evil, but they will not have it preached to them. But a wise morality should not be mixed up with absurd fables: for by these impostures, which you might do without, you weaken that morality which you are forced to teach.
BAMBABEF.--What! do you think that truth can be taught to the people without the aid of fables?
WHANG.--I firmly believe it. Our literati are made of the same stuff as our tailors, our weavers, and our laborers. They worship a creating, rewarding, and avenging God. They do not sully their worship by absurd systems, nor by extravagant ceremonies. There are much fewer crimes among the lettered than among the people; why should we not condescend to instruct our working classes as we do our literati?
BAMBABEF.--That would be great folly; as well might you wish them to have the same politeness, or to be all jurisconsults. It is neither possible nor desirable. There must be white bread for the master, and brown for the servant.
WHANG.--I own that men should not all have the same science; but there are things necessary to all. It is necessary that each one should be just; and the surest way of inspiring all men with justice is to inspire them with religion without superstition.
BAMBABEF.--That is a fine project, but it is impracticable. Do you think it is sufficient for men to believe in a being that rewards and punishes? You have told me that the more acute among the people often revolt against fables. They will, in like manner, revolt against truth. They will say: Who shall assure me that God rewards and punishes? Where is the proof? What mission have you? What miracle have you worked that I should believe in you? They will laugh at you much more than at me.
WHANG.--Your error is this: You imagine that men will spurn an idea that is honest, likely, and useful to every one; an idea which accords with human reason, because they reject things which are dishonest, absurd, useless, dangerous, and shocking to good sense.
The people are much disposed to believe their magistrates; and when their magistrates propose to them only a rational belief, they embrace it willingly. There is no need of prodigies to believe in a just God, who reads the heart of man: this is an idea too natural, too necessary, to be combated. It is not necessary to know precisely how God rewards and punishes: to believe in His justice is enough. I assure you that I have seen whole towns with scarcely any other tenet; and that in them I have seen the most virtue.
BAMBABEF.--Take heed what you say. You will find philosophers in these times, who will deny both pains and rewards.
WHANG.--But you will acknowledge that these philosophers will much more strongly deny your inventions; so you will gain nothing by that. Supposing that there are philosophers who do not agree with my principles, they are not the less honest men; they do not the less cultivate virtue, which should be embraced through love, and not through fear. Moreover, I maintain that no philosopher can ever be assured that Providence does not reserve pains for the wicked, and rewards for the good. For, if they ask me who has told me that God punishes, I shall ask them who has told them that God does not punish. In short, I maintain that the philosophers, far from contradicting, will aid me. Will you be a philosopher?
BAMBABEF.--With all my heart. But do not tell the fakirs. And let us, above all, remember that if a philosopher would be of service to human society, he must announce a God.
FREE-WILL.
From the commencement of the time in which men began to reason, philosophers have agitated this question, which theologians have rendered unintelligible by their absurd subtleties upon grace. Locke is perhaps the first who, without having the arrogance of announcing a general principle, has examined human nature by analysis. It has been disputed for three thousand years, whether the will is free or not; Locke shows that the question is absurd, and that liberty cannot belong to the will any more than color and motion.
What is meant by the expression to be free? It signifies power, or rather it has no sense at all. To say that the will _can_, is in itself as ridiculous as if we said that it is yellow, or blue, round, or square.
Will is will, and liberty is power. Let us gradually examine the chain of what passes within us, without confusing our minds with any scholastic terms, or antecedent principle.
It is proposed to you to ride on horseback; it is absolutely necessary for you to make a choice, for it is very clear that you must either go or not; there is no medium, you must absolutely do the one or the other. So far it is demonstrated that the will is not free. You will get on horseback; why? Because I will to do so, an ignoramus will say. This reply is an absurdity; nothing can be done without reason or cause. Your will then is caused by what? The agreeable idea which is presented to your brain; the predominant, or determined idea; but, you will say, cannot I resist an idea which predominates over me? No, for what would be the cause of your resistance? An idea by which your will is swayed still more despotically.
You receive your ideas, and, therefore, receive your will. You will then necessarily; consequently, the word "liberty" belongs not to will in any sense.
You ask me how thought and will are formed within you? I answer that I know nothing about it. I no more know how ideas are created than I know how the world was formed. We are only allowed to grope in the dark in reference to all that inspires our incomprehensible machine.
Will, then, is not a faculty which can be called free. "Free-will" is a word absolutely devoid of sense, and that which scholars have called "indifference," that is to say, will without cause, is a chimera unworthy to be combated.
In what then consists liberty? In the power of doing what we will? I would go into my cabinet; the door is open, I am free to enter. But, say you, if the door is shut and I remain where I am, I remain freely. Let us explain ourselves--you then exercise the power that you possess of remaining; you possess this power, but not the power of going out.
Liberty, then, on which so many volumes have been written, reduced to its proper sense, is only the power of acting.
In what sense must the expression "this man is free" be spoken? In the same sense in which we use the words "health," "strength," and "happiness." Man is not always strong, healthy, or happy. A great passion, a great obstacle, may deprive him of his liberty, or power of action.
The words "liberty" and "free-will" are, then, abstractions, general terms, like beauty, goodness, justice. These terms do not signify that all men are always handsome, good, and just, neither are they always free.
Further, liberty being only the power of acting, what is this power? It is the effect of the constitution, and the actual state of our organs. Leibnitz would solve a problem of geometry, but falls into an apoplexy; he certainly has not the liberty to solve his problem. A vigorous young man, passionately in love, who holds his willing mistress in his arms, is he free to subdue his passion? Doubtless not. He has the power of enjoying, and has not the power to abstain. Locke then is very right in calling liberty, power. When can this young man abstain, notwithstanding the violence of his passion? When a stronger idea shall determine the springs of his soul and body to the contrary.
But how? Have other animals the same liberty, the same power? Why not? They have sense, memory, sentiment, and perceptions like ourselves; they act spontaneously as we do. They must, also, like us, have the power of acting by virtue of their perception, and of the play of their organs.
We exclaim: If it be thus, all things are machines merely; everything in the universe is subjected to the eternal laws. Well, would you have everything rendered subject to a million of blind caprices? Either all is the consequence of the nature of things, or all is the effect of the eternal order of an absolute master; in both cases, we are only wheels to the machine of the world.
It is a foolish, common-place expression that without this pretended freedom of will, rewards and punishments are useless. Reason, and you will conclude quite the contrary.
If, when a robber is executed, his accomplice, who sees him suffer, has the liberty of not being frightened at the punishment; if his will determines of itself, he will go from the foot of the scaffold to assassinate on the high road; if struck with horror, he experiences an insurmountable terror, he will no longer thieve. The punishment of his companion will become useful to him, and moreover prove to society that his will is not free.
Liberty, then, is not and cannot be anything but the power of doing what we will. That is what philosophy teaches us. But, if we consider liberty in the theological sense, it is so sublime a matter that profane eyes may not be raised so high.
FRENCH LANGUAGE.
The French language did not begin to assume a regular form until the tenth century; it sprang from the remains of the Latin and the Celtic, mixed with a few Teutonic words. This language was, in the first instance, the provincial Roman, and the Teutonic was the language of the courts, until the time of Charles the Bald. The Teutonic remained the only language in Germany, after the grand epoch of the division in 433. The rustic Roman prevailed in Western France; the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud, of the Valois, of the valley of Engadine, and some other cantons, still preserve some manifest vestiges of this idiom.
At the commencement of the eleventh century, French began to be written; but this French retained more of Romance or rustic Roman than of the language of the present day. The romance of Philomena, written in the tenth century, is not very different in language from that of the laws of the Normans. We cannot yet trace the original Celtic, Latin, and German. The words which signify the members of the human body, or things in daily use, which have no relation to the Latin or German, are of ancient Gallic or Celtic, as _tête_, _jambe_, _sabre_, _point_, _alter_, _parler_, _écouter_, _regarder_, _crier_, _cotume_, _ensemble_, and many more of the same kind. The greater number of the warlike phrases were French or German, as _marche, halte, maréchal, bivouac, lansquenet_. Almost, all the rest are Latin, and the Latin words have been all abridged, according to the usage and genius of the nations of the north.
In the twelfth century, some terms were borrowed from the philosophy of Aristotle; and toward the sixteenth century, Greek names were found for the parts of the human body, and for its maladies and their remedies. Although the language was then enriched with Greek, and aided from the time of Charles VIII. with considerable accessions from the Italian, already arrived at perfection, it did not acquire a regular form. Francis I. abolished the custom of pleading and of judging in Latin, which proved the barbarism of a language which could not be used in public proceedings--a pernicious custom to the natives, whose fortunes were regulated in a language which they could not understand. It then became necessary to cultivate the French, but the language was neither noble nor regular, and its syntax was altogether capricious. The genius of its conversation being turned towards pleasantry, the language became fertile in smart and lively expressions, but exceedingly barren in dignified and harmonious phrases; whence it arises that in the dictionaries of rhymes, twenty suitable words are found for comic poetry for one of poetry of a more elevated nature. This was the cause that Marot never succeeded in the serious style, and that Amyot was unable to give a version of the elegant simplicity of Plutarch.
The French tongue acquired strength from the pen of Montaigne, but still wanted elevation and harmony. Ronsard injured the language by introducing into French poetry the Greek compounds, derivable from the physicians. Malherbe partly repaired the fault of Ronsard. It became more lofty and harmonious by the establishment of the French Academy, and finally in the age of Louis XIV. acquired the perfection by which it is now distinguished.
The genius of the French language--for every language has its genius--is clearness and order. This genius consists in the facility which a language possesses of expressing itself more or less happily, and of employing or rejecting the familiar terms of other languages. The French tongue having no declensions, and being aided by articles, cannot adopt the inversions of the Greek and the Latin; the words are necessarily arranged agreeably to the course of the ideas. We can only say in one way, "_Plancus a pris soin des affaires de Cæsar_"; but this phrase in Latin, "_Res Cæsaris, Plancus diligenter curavit_" may be arranged in a hundred and twenty different forms without injuring the sense or rules of the language. The auxiliary verbs, which lengthen and weaken phrases in the modern tongues, render that of France still less adapted to the lapidary style. Its auxiliary verbs, its pronouns, its articles, its deficiency of declinable participles, and, lastly, its uniformity of position, preclude the exhibition of much enthusiasm in poetry; it possesses fewer capabilities of this nature than the Italian and the English; but this constraint and slavery render it more proper for tragedy and comedy than any language in Europe. The natural order in which the French people are obliged to express their thoughts and construct their phrases, infuses into their speech a facility and amenity which please everybody; and the genius of the nation suiting with the genius of the language, has produced a greater number of books agreeably written than are to be found among any other people.
Social freedom and politeness having been for a long time established in France, the language has acquired a delicacy of expression, and a natural refinement which are seldom to be found out of it. This refinement has occasionally been carried too far; but men of taste have always known how to reduce it within due bounds.
Many persons have maintained that the French language has been impoverished since the days of Montaigne and Amyot, because expressions abound in these authors which are no longer employed; but these are for the most part terms for which equivalents have been found. It has been enriched with a number of noble and energetic expressions, and, without adverting to the eloquence of matter, has certainly that of speech. It was during the reign of Louis XIV., as already observed, that the language was fixed. Whatever changes time and caprice may have in store, the good authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will always serve for models.
Circumstances created no right to expect that France would be distinguished in philosophy. A Gothic government extinguished all kind of illumination during more than twelve centuries; and professors of error, paid for brutalizing human nature, more increased the darkness. Nevertheless, there is more philosophy in Paris than in any town on earth, and possibly than in all the towns put together, excepting London. The spirit of reason has even penetrated into the provinces. In a word, the French genius is probably at present equal to that of England in philosophy; while for the last four-score years France has been superior to all other nations in literature; and has undeniably taken the lead in the courtesies of society, and in that easy and natural politeness, which is improperly termed urbanity.
FRIENDSHIP.
The temple of friendship has long been known by name, but it is well known that it has been very little frequented; as the following verses pleasantly observe, Orestes, Pylades, Pirithous, Achates, and the tender Nisus, were all genuine friends and great heroes; but, alas, existent only in fable: _En vieux langage on voit sur la façade,_ _Les noms sacrés d'Oreste et de Pylade;_ _Le médaillon du bon Pirithous,_ _Du sage Achate et du tendre Nisus;_ _Tous grands héros, tous amis véritables;_ _Ces noms sont beaux; mais ils sont dans les fables._ Friendship commands more than love and esteem. Love your neighbor signifies assist your neighbor, but not--enjoy his conversation with pleasure, if he be tiresome; confide to him your secrets, if he be a tattler; or lend him your money, if he be a spendthrift.
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce. It is a tacit contract between two sensible and virtuous persons. I say sensible, for a monk or a hermit cannot be so, who lives without knowing friendship. I say virtuous, for the wicked only have accomplices--the voluptuous, companions--the interested, associates; politicians assemble factions--the generality of idle men have connections--princes, courtiers. Virtuous men alone possess friends.
Cethegus was the accomplice of Catiline, and Mæcenas the courtier of Octavius; but Cicero was the friend of Atticus.
What is caused by this contract between two tender, honest minds? Its obligations are stronger or weaker according to the degrees of sensibility, and the number of services rendered.
The enthusiasm of friendship has been stronger among the Greeks and Arabs than among us. The tales that these people have imagined on the subject of friendship are admirable; we have none to compare to them. We are rather dry and reserved--in everything. I see no great trait of friendship in our histories, romances, or theatre.
The only friendship spoken of among the Jews, was that which existed between Jonathan and David. It is said that David loved him with a love stronger than that of women; but it is also said that David, after the death of his friend, dispossessed Mephibosheth, his son, and caused him to be put to death.
Friendship was a point of religion and legislation among the Greeks. The Thebans had a regiment of lovers--a fine regiment; some have taken it for a regiment of nonconformists. They are deceived; it is taking a shameful accident for a noble principle. Friendship, among the Greeks, was prescribed by the laws and religion. Manners countenanced abuses, but the laws did not.
FRIVOLITY.
FRIVOLITY.
What persuades me still more of the existence of Providence, said the profound author of "_Bacha Billeboquet_," is that to console us for our innumerable miseries, nature has made us frivolous. We are sometimes ruminating oxen, overcome by the weight of our yoke; sometimes dispersed doves, tremblingly endeavoring to avoid the claws of the vulture, stained with the blood of our companions; foxes, pursued by dogs; and tigers, who devour one another. Then we suddenly become butterflies; and forget, in our volatile winnowings, all the horrors that we have experienced.
If we were not frivolous, what man without shuddering, could live in a town in which the wife of a marshal of France, a lady of honor to the queen, was burned, under the pretext that she had killed a white cock by moonlight; or in the same town in which Marshal Marillac was assassinated according to form, pursuant to a sentence passed by judicial murderers appointed by a priest in his own country house, in which he embraced Marion de Lorme while these robed wretches executed his sanguinary wishes?
Could a man say to himself, without trembling in every nerve, and having his heart frozen with horror: "Here I am, in the very place which, it is said, was strewed with the dead and dying bodies of two thousand young gentlemen, murdered near the Faubourg St. Antoine, because one man in a red cassock displeased some others in black ones!"
Who could pass the Rue de la Féronerie without shedding tears and falling into paroxysms of rage against the holy and abominable principles which plunged the sword into the heart of the best of men, and of the greatest of kings?
We could not walk a step in the streets of Paris on St. Bartholomew's day, without saying: "It was here that one of my ancestors was murdered for the love of God; it was here that one of my mother's family was dragged bleeding and mangled; it was here that one-half of my countrymen murdered the other."
Happily, men are so light, so frivolous, so struck with the present and so insensible to the past, that in ten thousand there are not above two or three who make these reflections.
How many boon companions have I seen, who, after the loss of children, wives, mistresses, fortune, and even health itself, have eagerly resorted to a party to retail a piece of scandal, or to a supper to tell humorous stories. Solidity consists chiefly in a uniformity of ideas. It has been said that a man of sense should invariably think in the same way; reduced to such an alternative, it would be better not to have been born. The ancients never invented a finer fable than that which bestowed a cup of the water of Lethe on all who entered the Elysian fields.
If you would tolerate life, mortals, forget yourselves, and enjoy it.
GALLANT.
This word is derived from "_gal_" the original signification of which was gayety and rejoicing, as may be seen in Alain Chartier, and in Froissart. Even in the "Romance of the Rose" we meet with the word "_galandé_" in the sense of ornamented, adorned.
It is probable that the _gala_ of the Italians, and the _galan_ of the Spaniards, are derived from the word "_gal_" which seems to be originally Celtic; hence, was insensibly formed _gallant_, which signifies a man forward, or eager to please. The term received an improved and more noble signification in the times of chivalry, when the desire to please manifested itself in feats of arms, and personal conflict. To conduct himself gallantly, to extricate himself from an affair gallantly, implies, even at present, a man's conducting himself conformably to principle and honor. A gallant man among the English, signifies a man of courage; in France it means more--a man of noble general demeanor. A gallant (_un homme galant_) is totally different from a gallant man (_un galant homme_); the latter means a man of respectable and honorable feeling--the former, something nearer the character of a _petit maître_ a man successfully addicted to intrigue. Being gallant (_être galant_) in general implies an assiduity to please by studious attentions, and flattering deference. "He was exceedingly gallant to those ladies," means merely, he behaved more than politely to them; but being the gallant of a lady is an expression of stronger meaning; it signifies being her lover; the word is scarcely any longer in use in this sense, except in low or familiar poetry. A gallant is not merely a man devoted to and successful in intrigue, but the term implies, moreover, somewhat of impudence and effrontery, in which sense Fontaine uses it in the following: "_Mais un 'galant,' chercheur des pucelages_."
Thus are various meanings attached to the same word. The case is similar with the term "gallantry," which sometimes signifies a disposition to coquetry, and a habit of flattery; sometimes a present of some elegant toy, or piece of jewelry; sometimes intrigue, with one woman or with many; and, latterly, it has even been applied to signify ironically the favors of Venus; thus, to talk gallantries, to give gallantries, to have gallantries, to contract a gallantry, express very different meanings. Nearly all the terms which occur frequently in conversation acquire, in the same manner, various shades of meaning, which it is difficult to discriminate; the meaning of terms of art is more precise and less arbitrary.
GARGANTUA.
If ever a reputation was fixed on a solid basis, it is that of Gargantua. Yet in the present age of philosophy and criticism, some rash and daring minds have started forward, who have ventured to deny the prodigies believed respecting this extraordinary man--persons who have carried their skepticism so far as even to doubt his very existence.
How is it possible, they ask, that there should have existed in the sixteenth century a distinguished hero, never mentioned by a single contemporary, by St. Ignatius, Cardinal Capitan, Galileo, or Guicciardini, and respecting whom the registers of the Sorbonne do not contain the slightest notice?
Investigate the histories of France, of Germany, of England, Spain, and other countries, and you find not a single word about Gargantua. His whole life, from his birth to his death, is a tissue of inconceivable prodigies.
His mother, Gargamelle, was delivered of him from the left ear. Almost at the instant of his birth he called out for a drink, with a voice that was heard even in the districts of Beauce and Vivarais. Sixteen ells of cloth were required to make him breeches, and a hundred hides of brown cows were used in his shoes. He had not attained the age of twelve years before he gained a great battle, and founded the abbey of Thélème. Madame Badebec was given to him in marriage, and Badebec is proved to be a Syrian name.
He is represented to have devoured six pilgrims in a mere salad, and the river Seine is stated to have flowed entirely from his person, so that the Parisians are indebted for their beautiful river to him alone.
All this is considered contrary to nature by our carping philosophers, who scruple to admit even what is probable, unless it is well supported by evidence.
They observe, that if the Parisians have always believed in Gargantua, that is no reason why other nations should believe in him; that if Gargantua had really performed one single prodigy out of the many attributed to him, the whole world would have resounded with it, all records would have noticed it, and a hundred monuments would have attested it. In short, they very unceremoniously treat the Parisians who believe in Gargantua as ignorant simpletons and superstitious idiots, with whom are inter-mixed a few hypocrites, who pretend to believe in Gargantua, in order to obtain some convenient priorship in the abbey of Thélème.
The reverend Father Viret, a Cordelier of full-sleeved dignity, a confessor of ladies, and a preacher to the king, has replied to our Pyrrhonean philosophers in a manner decisive and invincible. He very learnedly proves that if no writer, with the exception of Rabelais, has mentioned the prodigies of Gargantua, at least, no historian has contradicted them; that the sage de Thou, who was a believer in witchcraft, divination, and astrology, never denied the miracles of Gargantua. They were not even called in question by La Mothe le Vayer. Mézeray treated them with such respect as not to say a word against them, or indeed about them. These prodigies were performed before the eyes of all the world. Rabelais was a witness of them. It was impossible that he could be deceived, or that he would deceive. Had he deviated even in the smallest degree from the truth, all the nations of Europe would have been roused against him in indignation; all the gazetteers and journalists of the day would have exclaimed with one voice against the fraud and imposture.