Part I, Chapter 10: Some Examples of Obscure and Confused Ideas taken from Morals
We have, in the preceding chapter, referred to various examples of those confused ideas which may also be called false for the reason that we stated; but since they are all taken from physics, it may be useful to add to them a few others, taken from morals: the false ideas which we form in relation to good and evil being infinitely more dangerous than any others.
Whether a man has an idea, false or true, clear or obscure, of ponderosity, of sensible qualities, and of the actions of sense, he is not, on that account, either more happy or miserable; if he be a little more or less learned, he is not, on this account, either a better or a worse man.
Whatever opinion we may have of all these things, they will not change on our account; their existence is independent of our knowledge, and the conduct of our life is independent of the knowledge of their existence;—thus every one is allowed to refer these things to what we shall know of them in another life, and to repose, generally, for the order of the world, on the goodness and wisdom of Him who governs it.
But no one can dispense with the forming of judgments on those things which are good and evil, since it is by these judgments that we ought to conduct our life, regulate our actions, and render ourselves happy or miserable for eternity; and since the false ideas which we have of all these things are the sources of the wrong judgments which we form of them, it will be infinitely more important to apply ourselves to know and to correct these, than to correct those which the rashness of our judgments, or the prejudices of our youth, have led us to conceive in relation to natural things, which are the objects of barren speculation only.
In order to unfold these, it would be necessary to go through a complete course of morals; but we intend, here, only to give some examples of the manner in which they are formed, by joining together a great number of different ideas which are not connected in reality, of which we make those vain phantoms after which men run, and by which they are rendered miserable all their lives.
Man finds in himself the idea of happiness and misery; and this idea is neither false nor confused so long as it remains general. He has also ideas of smallness and greatness, of meanness and excellence; he desires happiness, he shuns misery; he admires excellence, he despises meanness.
But the corruption of sin, which separates him from God, in whom alone he can find his true happiness, and to whom alone, therefore, he ought to attach the idea of it, causes him to connect it with a multitude of things into the love of which he is precipitated, in order to seek there that happiness which he has lost; and hence it is that he forms a multitude of obscure and false ideas, in representing to himself all the objects of his love as able to render him happy, and those which deprive him of them, as rendering him miserable. In the same way, he has lost, through sin, true greatness and true excellence; and thus he is constrained, in order to love himself to represent himself as different from what he really is, to hide from himself his misery and his poverty, and to include in his idea of happiness a great number of things entirely separated from it, to the end that he may glorify himself and become great; and the ordinary course of these false ideas is as follows: —
The first and principal tendency of concupiscence is towards the pleasures of sense which arise from certain external objects; and when the mind perceives that the pleasure which it loves comes to it from these things, it immediately connects with them the idea of good, and that of evil to what deprives it of them;—then, seeing that riches and human power are the common means of enabling it to possess the objects of its desire, it begins to consider them as great goods; and, consequently, considers the rich and the great, who possess these things, happy,—and the poor, who are deprived of them, miserable.
Now, since there is a certain excellence in happiness, the soul never separates these two ideas, but considers always as great those whom it reckons to be happy, and as small those whom it considers poor and miserable; and this is the reason of the contempt which is shown to the poor, and the honour which is done to the rich. These judgments are so unjust and false, that St Thomas believes that it is this respect and esteem for admiration that is condemned so severely by the apostle St James, when he forbids the giving of a seat more elevated to the rich than to the poor in religious assemblies; for that passage cannot be understood to the letter as a reproof for rendering a certain external respect to the rich rather than to the poor, since the order of the world, which religion does not disturb, allows these preferences, and even saints themselves have practised it; it appears that we ought to understand it as that inward preference which causes us to regard the poor as under the feet of the rich, and the rich as infinitely superior to the poor.
But though these ideas and these judgments, which arise in the soul, are false and unreasonable, they are, nevertheless, common to all men who have not corrected them, since they are produced through the concupiscence by which they are all infected. And hence it happens that we not only form these ideas of rich men, but we know also that others have for them the same feelings of respect and admiration; so that we consider their state not only surrounded with all pomp, with all the advantages which are connected therewith, but also with all those favourable judgments which we have formed of riches, and which we know by the common discourse of men, and by our own experience.
It is properly this phantom, composed of all the admirers of the rich and of the great, who are conceived to surround their throne, and regard them with sentiments of inward fear, of respect, and of abasement, which makes the idol of the ambitious, for which they labour all their life long, and expose themselves to so many dangers.
And to show what it is they seek after and worship, it needs only to be considered, that if there were in the world only one man who thought, and that all the rest of those who had the human figure were only automatons, and that, moreover, this single reasoning man, knowing perfectly that all the statues which resembled him outwardly were entirely deprived of reason and thought, knew, nevertheless, the secret of moving them by certain springs, and of obtaining from them all the services which we obtain from men,—we could believe that he would sometimes divert himself with the various movements of these statues; but certainly he would never place his pleasure and his glory in the outward reverence which he would gain to himself through them, he would never be flattered by their homage, and he would even weary of them, as one wearies of puppets; so that he would commonly content himself with obtaining the services which were necessary to him, without caring to amass a greater number than he had need of for his own use.
It is not, therefore, the simple outward effects of the respect of men, separated from the consideration of their thoughts, which constitute the objects of love to the ambitious; they wish to command men, not automatons, and their pleasure consists in seeing those movements of fear, of awe, and of admiration, which they excite in others.
Hence we see that the idea which fills them is as vain and as groundless as that of those who are properly called vain men, who are those delighting themselves with flatteries, acclamations, titles, and other things of that nature. The only thing which distinguishes them is the difference of the feelings and judgments which they delight in exciting; for, whereas vain men make it their aim to excite feelings of love and respect for their knowledge, their eloquence, their genius, their address, their goodness,—the ambitious wish to excite emotions of terror, of respect, and of awe, for their greatness, and of ideas conformed to these opinions, by which men regard them as terrible, exalted, mighty;—thus the one and the other place their happiness on the thoughts of others; but these choose certain thoughts, those, others.
There is nothing more common than to see these vain phantoms, composed of the false judgments of men, give rise to the greatest enterprises, and serve as the principal object through the whole course of men’s lives.
That bravery so esteemed in the world, which makes those who are considered brave rush without fear into the greatest dangers, is often only the effect of the impression made by vain and empty ideas which fill their minds.
Few persons seriously despise life, and those who appear to face death at the breach or in the battle, tremble as others, or often more than others, when it attacks them in their bed.
But that which produces the bravery which they manifest on such occasions, is, that they regard, on the one hand, the railleries which come to the coward, and, on the other, the flatteries which are given to valiant men; and that double phantom occupies their attention, and diverts them from the consideration of dangers and death.
And this is the reason why those who have reason to believe that men look at them, being more filled with the thought of these opinions, are more valiant and more noble. Thus officers have commonly more courage than common soldiers, and gentlemen than those who are not so, because, having more honour to lose than to get, they are also more sensibly affected by it. The same labours, said a great captain, are not equally painful to a general of an army and to a private, because a general is sustained by the judgments of a whole army, who have their eyes upon him, whereas a private has nothing to sustain him but the hope of a small reward, and the insignificant reputation of a good soldier, which often does not extend beyond his own company.
What is it which those propose to themselves who build magnificent houses far beyond their condition or their fortune? It is not simply convenience which they seek in this,—their excessive magnificence is a hindrance rather than any help to this, and it is clear that if they were alone in the world they would never take that trouble, or if they believed that those who saw their houses would view them only with feelings of contempt. It is, therefore, for men that they labour, and for the men who shall praise; they imagine that all those who look upon their palace will conceive emotions of respect and admiration for him who is the master of it; and thus they represent themselves as in the midst of their palace, environed by a crowd of people, who, from below, regard them as high above them, and who judge them great, powerful, happy, magnificent; and it is for this idea, which fills them, that they put themselves to so much expense, and take so much trouble. And why is it, we may ask, that men load their carriages with such a number of servants? It is not for the services which they render, for they inconvenience rather than help them; but it is to excite as they go, in those who behold them, the idea that a person of great state is passing; and the consideration of this idea, which they imagine may be formed in viewing their carriages, satisfies the vanity of those to whom they belong.
In the same way, if we examine all the states, all the employments, and all the professions which are esteemed in the world, we shall find that which renders them agreeable, and that which recompenses the troubles and the fatigues which accompany them, is, that they present frequently to the mind the idea of emotions of respect, of esteem, of fear, of admiration, which others have for us.
On the contrary, that which renders solitude wearisome to the majority of men is, that being separated from the company of men, they are also separated from their judgments and thoughts. Thus their heart remains empty and famished, being deprived of this usual nourishment, and not finding ought in themselves to supply the void. And it is on this account that pagan philosophers have considered a solitary life insupportable; so that they have not hesitated to say that their wise men would not possess every possible good of mind and body, on the tenure of living alone, and never speaking with any one of his happiness. It is only the christian religion which has been able to render solitude agreeable, since, leading men to despise these vain ideas, it gives them, at the same time, other objects more fitted to occupy their minds, and more worthy to fill their hearts, for which they have no need of the society of or intercourse with men.
But it is necessary to remark that the love of men does not properly terminate in the knowledge of the thoughts and the feelings of others, but that they employ these only to aggrandise and heighten the idea which they have of themselves, in joining to it, and incorporating with it, all these extraneous ideas; and they imagine, by a gross illusion, that they are really greatest, because they dwell in the greatest house, and because they have there more people who admire them; although all these things which are without them, and all these opinions of other men, add nothing to them—leaving them as poor and miserable as they were before.
We may hence discover what it is that renders many things pleasant to men, which appear to have nothing in themselves which would be capable of diverting or of pleasing them; for the reason of the pleasure they take in such things is, that the idea of themselves which is represented to them is greater than is common, by some vain circumstance which they have added to it. We take pleasure in speaking of the dangers through which we have passed, because we represent to ourselves, by means of these accidents, an idea which makes us appear either as prudent, or as particular favourites of God. We love to speak of diseases of which we are cured, because we represent ourselves as having strength enough to resist the greatest evils.
We desire to obtain advantage in everything, and even in games of chance, in which there is no skill, even when we do not play for gain, since we join to the idea of success that of happiness; it seems as though fortune had made choice of us, and that we had become her favourites, in consequence of our merit. We even conceive this pretended good fortune as a permanent quality, which may give us the right to hope for the same success in future; and hence it is that there are some whom players choose, and with whom they love rather to connect themselves than with others, which is perfectly ridiculous; for we may say well enough, that a man has been successful up to a certain moment, but for the moment after there is no greater probability, on that account, that he will be so, than those who have been less fortunate.
Thus the mind of those who love only the world has for its object only vain phantoms, which miserably amuse and occupy it; and those who have the reputation of being wiser only fill themselves, even as others, with illusions and dreams. Those alone who join their life and actions to eternal things can be said to have a substantial object, real and material; it being true with regard to all others, that they love vanity and nothingness, and that they run after falsity and error.