The Essays, vol 9 | Page 7

piece. And, therefore, to make a right judgment of a
man, we are long and very observingly to follow his trace: if constancy
does not there stand firm upon her own proper base,
"Cui vivendi via considerata atque provisa est,"
["If the way of his life is thoroughly considered and traced out."
--Cicero, Paradox, v. 1.]
if the variety of occurrences makes him alter his pace (his path, I mean,
for the pace may be faster or slower) let him go; such an one runs
before the wind, "Avau le dent," as the motto of our Talebot has it.
'Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a
dominion over us, since it is by chance we live. It is not possible for
any one who has not designed his life for some certain end, it is
impossible for any one to arrange the pieces, who has not the whole

form already contrived in his imagination. Of what use are colours to
him that knows not what he is to paint? No one lays down a certain
design for his life, and we only deliberate thereof by pieces. The archer
ought first to know at what he is to aim, and then accommodate his arm,
bow, string, shaft, and motion to it; our counsels deviate and wander,
because not levelled to any determinate end. No wind serves him who
addresses his voyage to no certain, port. I cannot acquiesce in the
judgment given by one in the behalf of Sophocles, who concluded him
capable of the management of domestic affairs, against the accusation
of his son, from having read one of his tragedies.
Neither do I allow of the conjecture of the Parians, sent to regulate the
Milesians sufficient for such a consequence as they from thence
derived coming to visit the island, they took notice of such grounds as
were best husbanded, and such country-houses as were best governed;
and having taken the names of the owners, when they had assembled
the citizens, they appointed these farmers for new governors and
magistrates; concluding that they, who had been so provident in their
own private concerns, would be so of the public too. We are all lumps,
and of so various and inform a contexture, that every piece plays, every
moment, its own game, and there is as much difference betwixt us and
ourselves as betwixt us and others:
"Magnam rem puta, unum hominem agere."
["Esteem it a great thing always to act as one and the same
man."--Seneca, Ep., 150.]
Since ambition can teach man valour, temperance, and liberality, and
even justice too; seeing that avarice can inspire the courage of a
shop-boy, bred and nursed up in obscurity and ease, with the assurance
to expose himself so far from the fireside to the mercy of the waves and
angry Neptune in a frail boat; that she further teaches discretion and
prudence; and that even Venus can inflate boys under the discipline of
the rod with boldness and resolution, and infuse masculine courage into
the heart of tender virgins in their mothers' arms:
"Hac duce, custodes furtim transgressa jacentes, Ad juvenem tenebris

sola puella venit:"
["She leading, the maiden, furtively passing by the recumbent guards,
goes alone in the darkness to the youth." --Tibullus, ii. 2, 75.]
'tis not all the understanding has to do, simply to judge us by our
outward actions; it must penetrate the very soul, and there discover by
what springs the motion is guided. But that being a high and hazardous
undertaking, I could wish that fewer would attempt it.

CHAPTER II
OF DRUNKENNESS
The world is nothing but variety and disemblance, vices are all alike, as
they are vices, and peradventure the Stoics understand them so; but
although they are equally vices, yet they are not all equal vices; and he
who has transgressed the ordinary bounds a hundred paces:
"Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum,"
["Beyond or within which the right cannot exist." --Horace, Sat., i, 1,
107.]
should not be in a worse condition than he that has advanced but ten, is
not to be believed; or that sacrilege is not worse than stealing a
cabbage:
"Nec vincet ratio hoc, tantumdem ut peccet, idemque, Qui teneros
caules alieni fregerit horti, Et qui nocturnus divum sacra legerit."
There is in this as great diversity as in anything whatever. The
confounding of the order and measure of sins is dangerous: murderers,
traitors, and tyrants get too much by it, and it is not reasonable they
should flatter their consciences, because another man is idle, lascivious,
or not assiduous at his devotion. Every one overrates the offence of his
companions, but extenuates his own. Our very instructors themselves

rank them sometimes, in my opinion, very ill. As Socrates said that the