The Essays, vol 19 | Page 8

hand, and that the left hand, too; let him
be who he may, he shall be sure to come off with loss.
In China, of which kingdom the government and arts, without
commerce with or knowledge of ours, surpass our examples in several
excellent features, and of which the history teaches me how much
greater and more various the world is than either the ancients or we
have been able to penetrate, the officers deputed by the prince to visit
the state of his provinces, as they punish those who behave themselves
ill in their charge, so do they liberally reward those who have
conducted themselves better than the common sort, and beyond the
necessity of their duty; these there present themselves, not only to be
approved but to get; not simply to be paid, but to have a present made
to them.
No judge, thank God, has ever yet spoken to me in the quality of a
judge, upon any account whatever, whether my own or that of a third
party, whether criminal or civil; nor no prison has ever received me, not
even to walk there. Imagination renders the very outside of a jail
displeasing to me; I am so enamoured of liberty, that should I be
interdicted the access to some corner of the Indies, I should live a little
less at my ease; and whilst I can find earth or air open elsewhere, I shall
never lurk in any place where I must hide myself. My God! how ill
should I endure the condition wherein I see so many people, nailed to a
corner of the kingdom, deprived of the right to enter the principal cities
and courts, and the liberty of the public roads, for having quarrelled
with our laws. If those under which I live should shake a finger at me
by way of menace, I would immediately go seek out others, let them be
where they would. All my little prudence in the civil wars wherein we
are now engaged is employed that they may not hinder my liberty of
going and coming.
Now, the laws keep up their credit, not for being just, but because they

are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have no
other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools,
still oftener by men who, out of hatred to equality, fail in equity, but
always by men, vain and irresolute authors. There is nothing so much,
nor so grossly, nor so ordinarily faulty, as the laws. Whoever obeys
them because they are just, does not justly obey them as he ought. Our
French laws, by their irregularity and deformity, lend, in some sort, a
helping hand to the disorder and corruption that all manifest in their
dispensation and execution: the command is so perplexed and
inconstant, that it in some sort excuses alike disobedience and defect in
the interpretation, the administration and the observation of it. What
fruit then soever we may extract from experience, that will little
advantage our institution, which we draw from foreign examples, if we
make so little profit of that we have of our own, which is more familiar
to us, and, doubtless, sufficient to instruct us in that whereof we have
need. I study myself more than any other subject; 'tis my metaphysic,
my physic:
"Quis deus hanc mundi temperet arte domum: Qua venit exoriens, qua
deficit: unde coactis Cornibus in plenum menstrua luna redit Unde salo
superant venti, quid flamine captet Eurus, et in nubes unde perennis
aqua; Sit ventura dies mundi quae subruat arces...."
["What god may govern with skill this dwelling of the world? whence
rises the monthly moon, whither wanes she? how is it that her horns are
contracted and reopen? whence do winds prevail on the main? what
does the east wind court with its blasts? and whence are the clouds
perpetually supplied with water? is a day to come which may
undermine the world?"--Propertius, iii. 5, 26.]
"Quaerite, quos agitat mundi labor."
["Ask whom the cares of the world trouble"--Lucan, i. 417.]
In this universality, I suffer myself to be ignorantly and negligently led
by the general law of the world: I shall know it well enough when I feel
it; my learning cannot make it alter its course; it will not change itself
for me; 'tis folly to hope it, and a greater folly to concern one's self

about it, seeing it is necessarily alike public and common. The
goodness and capacity of the governor ought absolutely to discharge us
of all care of the government: philosophical inquisitions and
contemplations serve for no other use but to increase our curiosity. The
philosophers; with great reason, send us back to the rules of nature; but
they have nothing to do with