The Essays, vol 19 | Page 6

said of the writings of
Heraclitus falls pat enough, "that they required a reader who could
swim well," so that the depth and weight of his learning might not
overwhelm and stifle him. 'Tis nothing but particular weakness that
makes us content with what others or ourselves have found out in this
chase after knowledge: one of better understanding will not rest so
content; there is always room for one to follow, nay, even for ourselves;
and another road; there is no end of our inquisitions; our end is in the
other world. 'Tis a sign either that the mind has grown shortsighted
when it is satisfied, or that it has got weary. No generous mind can stop
in itself; it will still tend further and beyond its power; it has sallies
beyond its effects; if it do not advance and press forward, and retire,
and rush and wheel about, 'tis but half alive; its pursuits are without
bound or method; its aliment is admiration, the chase, ambiguity, which
Apollo sufficiently declared in always speaking to us in a double,
obscure, and oblique sense: not feeding, but amusing and puzzling us.
'Tis an irregular and perpetual motion, without model and without aim;
its inventions heat, pursue, and interproduce one another:
Estienne de la Boetie; thus translated by Cotton:
"So in a running stream one wave we see After another roll incessantly,
And as they glide, each does successively Pursue the other, each the
other fly By this that's evermore pushed on, and this By that continually
preceded is: The water still does into water swill, Still the same brook,

but different water still."
There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things,
and more books upon books than upon any other subject; we do
nothing but comment upon one another. Every place swarms with
commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity. Is it not the principal
and most reputed knowledge of our later ages to understand the learned?
Is it not the common and final end of all studies? Our opinions are
grafted upon one another; the first serves as a stock to the second, the
second to the third, and so forth; thus step by step we climb the ladder;
whence it comes to pass that he who is mounted highest has often more
honour than merit, for he is got up but an inch upon the shoulders of the
last, but one.
How often, and, peradventure, how foolishly, have I extended my book
to make it speak of itself; foolishly, if for no other reason but this, that
it should remind me of what I say of others who do the same: that the
frequent amorous glances they cast upon their work witness that their
hearts pant with self-love, and that even the disdainful severity
wherewith they scourge them are but the dandlings and caressings of
maternal love; as Aristotle, whose valuing and undervaluing himself
often spring from the same air of arrogance. My own excuse is, that I
ought in this to have more liberty than others, forasmuch as I write
specifically of myself and of my writings, as I do of my other actions;
that my theme turns upon itself; but I know not whether others will
accept this excuse.
I observed in Germany that Luther has left as many divisions and
disputes about the doubt of his opinions, and more, than he himself
raised upon the Holy Scriptures. Our contest is verbal: I ask what
nature is, what pleasure, circle, and substitution are? the question is
about words, and is answered accordingly. A stone is a body; but if a
man should further urge: "And what is a body?"--"Substance"; "And
what is substance?" and so on, he would drive the respondent to the end
of his Calepin.
[Calepin (Ambrogio da Calepio), a famous lexicographer of the
fifteenth century. His Polyglot Dictionary became so famous, that

Calepin became a common appellation for a lexicon]
We exchange one word for another, and often for one less understood. I
better know what man is than I know what Animal is, or Mortal, or
Rational. To satisfy one doubt, they give me three; 'tis the Hydra's head.
Socrates asked Menon, "What virtue was." "There is," says Menon,
"the virtue of a man and of a woman, of a magistrate and of a private
person, of an old man and of a child." "Very fine," cried Socrates, "we
were in quest of one virtue, and thou hast brought us a whole swarm."
We put one question, and they return us a whole hive. As no event, no
face, entirely resembles another, so do they not entirely differ: an
ingenious mixture of nature. If our faces were not alike, we could not
distinguish man from beast; if they were not unlike,