the labour of beginning again another time. This man having discovered death at leisure, was not only not discouraged at the approach of it, but provoked it; for being satisfied that he had engaged in the combat, he considered it as a piece of bravery, and that he was obliged in honour to see the end. 'Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it. The story of the philosopher Cleanthes is very like this: he had his gums swollen and rotten; his physicians advised him to great abstinence; having fasted two days, he was so much better that they pronounced him cured, and permitted him to his ordinary course of diet; he, on the contrary, already tasting some sweetness in this faintness of his, would not be persuaded to go back, but resolved to proceed, and to finish what he had so far advanced in.1 Tullius Marcellinus, a young man of Rome, having a mind to anticipate the hour of his destiny, to be rid of a disease that was more trouble to him than he was willing to endure, though his physician assured him of a certain, though not sudden, cure, called a council of his friends to consult about it; "of whom some," says Seneca, "gave him the counsel which, out of unmanliness, they would have taken themselves; others, out of flattery, such as they thought he would best like; but a Stoic said thus to him: Do not concern thyself, Marcellinus, as if thou didst deliberate of a thing of importance; 'tis no great matter to live; thy servants and beasts live; but it is a great thing to die handsomely, wisely, and firmly. Do but think how long thou hast done the same thing, eat, drink, and sleep, drink, sleep, and eat; we incessantly wheel in the same circle. Not only ill and insupportable accidents, but even the satiety of living inclines a man to desire to die.'" Marcellinus did not stand in need of a man to advise, but of a man to assist him; his servants were afraid to meddle in the business; but this philosopher gave them to understand that domestics are suspected only when it 1 Laertius, in Vità. is in doubt whether the death of the master was voluntary or no; besides that it would be of as ill example to hinder him as to kill him; forasmuch as Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti; 1 "Who makes a man to live against his will Afterwards he told Marcellinus that it would not be indecent, as the remains of feasts, when we have done, is given to the servants, so life, being ended, to distribute something to those who have been our assistants. Now Marcellinus was of a free and liberal spirit, he therefore divided a certain sum of money amongst his attendants and comforted them. As to the rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood. He was resolved to go out of this life, and not to run out of it; not to escape from death, but to essay it. And to give himself leisure to trifle with it, having forsaken all kind of nourishment, the third day following, after having caused himself to be sprinkled with warm water, he went off faintingly and by degrees, and not without some kind of pleasure, as he himself declared.2 In earnest, such as have been acquainted with these faintings, proceeding from weakness, say that they are therein sensible of no manner of pain, but rather feel a kind of delight, as in a passage to sleep and rest. These are studied and digested deaths. But to the end that Cato only may furnish out the whole example of virtue, it seems as if his good destiny had weakened the hand with which he gave himself the blow, seeing he had the leisure to confront and grapple with death, reinforcing his courage in the greatest danger, instead of letting it go less. And if I had been to represent him in his supreme station, I should have done it in the posture of tearing out his bloody bowels, rather than with his sword in his hand,as did the statuaries of his time; for this second murder was much more furious than the first. 1 Horat. de Art. Poet. 467. Seneca, Epist. 77. CHAPTER XIV. THAT THE MIND HINDERS ITSELF. 'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt two equal desires; for doubtless it can never pitch upon either, forasmuch as the choice and application would manifest an inequality of esteem; and were we set between the bottle and the ham with an equal appetite to drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy, but we must die for thirst and hunger.1 To provide against this inconvenience, the Stoics,2 when they are asked whence the election in our soul between two indifferent things proceeds, and what makes us, out of a great number of crowns, rather take one than another, there being no reason to incline us to such a preference, make answer that this movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular; that it enters into us by a strange, accidental, and fortuitous impulse. It might rather, methinks, be said that nothing presents itself to us wherein there is not some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or touch, there is always some choice, that, though it be imperceptibly tempts and attracts us in like manner. Whoever shall suppose a packthread equally strong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should break; for where will you have the breaking to begin? And that it should break altogether is not in nature. Whoever also should hereunto join the geometrical propositions, that by the certainty of their demonstrations conclude the contained to be greater than the containing, the centre as great as its circumference, and that find out two lines incessantly approaching each other, and that yet can never meet, and the philoso 1 See Bayle's Dictionary, article Buridan. VOL. II. 23 2 Plutarch, Contradictions of the Stoic Philosophers. pher's stone, and the quadrature of the circle, where the reason and effect are so opposite, might peradventure find some argument to second this bold saying of Pliny,1 Solum certum nihil esse certi, et homine nihil miserius aut superbius: "This is only certain, there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man." CHAPTER XV. THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTIES. THERE is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest philosophers. I was ruminating on the excellent saying one of the ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring pleasure, but that for the loss of which we are beforehand prepared ; " In æquo est dolor amissæ rei, et timor amittendæ ; "The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it, are equal;" meaning by that that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us if we are in fear of losing it. It might, however, be said, on the contrary, that we hug and embrace this good so much the more tenderly, and with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less assured, and fear to have it taken from us; for as it is evident that fire burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, so our wills are more obstinate by being opposed :Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris, Non esset Danae de Jove facta parens.4 "A brazen tower if Danae had not had, She ne'er by Jove had been a mother made;" and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as 1 Nat. Hist. ii. 7. 2 Seneca, Epist. 4. $ Id. Epist. 98. 4 Ovid. Amor. ii. 19, 27. satiety which proceeds from facility; nor any thing that so much whets it as rarity and difficulty: Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quod debet fugare, periculo crescit. "The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that should deter it." Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent.2 "Galla, deny; be not too easily gain'd; For love will glut with joys too soon obtain'd." To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of Lacedemonia should never enjoy one another but by stealth; and that it should be as great a shame for them to be taken in bed together as if committing with others. The difficulty of assignations, the danger of surprise, the shame of the morning, "The languor, silence, and the deep-fetch'd sighs," How many these are what give the haut goût to the sauce. Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant lædere id ipsum But still some sting remains, some fierce desire, And so it is in every thing; difficulty gives all things their 1 Seneca, de Benef. vii. 9. 2 Martial, iv. 37. 3 Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, iii. 4 Horace, Epod. xi. 9. Plutarch, Life of Pompey, i. 6 Lucret. iv. 1073. |