The Essays, vol 7 | Page 7

to be altered nor forgotten

without offence. I find it equally in bad taste to encumber the fronts and
inscriptions of the books we commit to the press with such.

CHAPTER XL
THAT THE RELISH FOR GOOD AND EVIL DEPENDS IN GREAT
MEASURE UPON THE OPINION WE HAVE OF THEM
Men (says an ancient Greek sentence)--[Manual of Epictetus, c. 10.]--
are tormented with the opinions they have of things and not by the
things themselves. It were a great victory obtained for the relief of our
miserable human condition, could this proposition be established for
certain and true throughout. For if evils have no admission into us but
by the judgment we ourselves make of them, it should seem that it is,
then, in our own power to despise them or to turn them to good. If
things surrender themselves to our mercy, why do we not convert and
accommodate them to our advantage? If what we call evil and torment
is neither evil nor torment of itself, but only that our fancy gives it that
quality, it is in us to change it, and it being in our own choice, if there
be no constraint upon us, we must certainly be very strange fools to
take arms for that side which is most offensive to us, and to give
sickness, want, and contempt a bitter and nauseous taste, if it be in our
power to give them a pleasant relish, and if, fortune simply providing
the matter, 'tis for us to give it the form. Now, that what we call evil is
not so of itself, or at least to that degree that we make it, and that it
depends upon us to give it another taste and complexion (for all comes
to one), let us examine how that can be maintained.
If the original being of those things we fear had power to lodge itself in
us by its own authority, it would then lodge itself alike, and in like
manner, in all; for men are all of the same kind, and saving in greater
and less proportions, are all provided with the same utensils and
instruments to conceive and to judge; but the diversity of opinions we
have of those things clearly evidences that they only enter us by
composition; one person, peradventure, admits them in their true being,
but a thousand others give them a new and contrary being in them. We

hold death, poverty, and pain for our principal enemies; now, this death,
which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does
not know that others call it the only secure harbour from the storms and
tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of
liberty, and the common and prompt remedy of all evils? And as the
one expect it with fear and trembling, the others support it with greater
ease than life. That one complains of its facility:
"Mors! utinam pavidos vitae subducere nolles. Sed virtus to sola daret!"
["O death! wouldst that thou might spare the coward, but that valour
alone should pay thee tribute."--Lucan, iv. 580.]
Now, let us leave these boastful courages. Theodorus answered
Lysimachus, who threatened to kill him, "Thou wilt do a brave feat,"
said he, "to attain the force of a cantharides." The majority of
philosophers are observed to have either purposely anticipated, or
hastened and assisted their own death. How many ordinary people do
we see led to execution, and that not to a simple death, but mixed with
shame and sometimes with grievous torments, appear with such
assurance, whether through firm courage or natural simplicity, that a
man can discover no change from their ordinary condition; settling
their domestic affairs, commending themselves to their friends, singing,
preaching, and addressing the people, nay, sometimes sallying into jests,
and drinking to their companions, quite as well as Socrates?
One that they were leading to the gallows told them they must not take
him through such a street, lest a merchant who lived there should arrest
him by the way for an old debt. Another told the hangman he must not
touch his neck for fear of making him laugh, he was so ticklish.
Another answered his confessor, who promised him he should that day
sup with our Lord, "Do you go then," said he, "in my room [place]; for
I for my part keep fast to-day." Another having called for drink, and the
hangman having drunk first, said he would not drink after him, for fear
of catching some evil disease. Everybody has heard the tale of the
Picard, to whom, being upon the ladder, they presented a common
wench, telling him (as our law does some times permit) that if he would
marry her they would save his life; he, having