848 REPEATED WORDS HAVE ANOTHER KIND OF SOUND AND SENCÉ.

plainly confess'd to them of what party I was, and whither I was going) in earnest, I do not yet rightly apprehend. The most eminent amongst them, who pull'd off his vizor, and told me his name, then several times told me over and over again, that I was oblig'd for my deliverance to my countenance, and the liberty and boldness of my speech, that render'd me unworthy of such a misadventure, and demanded assurance from me of the like courtesie. 'Tis like that the Divine bounty would make use of this vain instrument of my preservation, and moreover defended me the next day from other and worse ambushes, which even these had given me warning of. The last of these two gentlemen is yet living, to give an account of the story; the first was kill'd not long ago. If my face did not answer for me, if men did not read in my eyes and voice, the innocency of my intention, I had not liv'd so long without quarrels, and without giving offence, with the indiscreet liberty I take, right or wrong, to say whatever comes at my tongue's end, and to judge so rashly of things. This way may with reason appear uncivil, and ill adapted to our way of conversation; but I have never met with any who have judg'd it outrageous or malicious, or that took offence at my liberty, if he had it from my own mouth. Repeated words have another kind of sound and sence: neither do I hate any person whatever, and am so slow to offend, that I cannot do it, even upon the account of reason it self. And when occasion has invited me to sentence criminals, I have rather chose to fail in point of justice, than to do it. "Ut magis peccari nolim, quam satis animi ad vindicanda peccata habeam." "So that I had rather men should not offend, than that I should have the heart to condemn them." Aristotle, 'tis said, was reproach'd for having been too merciful to a wicked man: "I was indeed,” said he, "merciful to the man, but not to his wickedness." Ordinary judgments exasperate themselves to punishment by the horror of the fact. Even this cools mine. The horror of the first murther makes me fear a second, and the deformity of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation of it. That may be apply'd to me, who am but a knave of clubs, which was said of Charillus king of Sparta, "He cannot be good, because he is not evil to the wicked." Or thus ; for Plutarch delivers it both these ways, as he does a thousand other things, variously, and contrary to one another: "He must needs be good, because he is so even to the wicked." Even as in lawful actions, I do not care to employ my self, when for such as are displeas'd at it, so to say the truth, in unlawful things, I do not make conscience enough of employing my self, when for such as are willing.

CHAP. CVII.-OF EXPERIENCE.

THERE is no desire more natural than that of knowledge: we try all ways that can lead us to it; where reason is wanting, we therein employ experience :

:

Per varios usus artem experientia fecit,
Exemplo monstrante viam.-Manilius.

By several proofs experience art has made,
Example being guide.

which is a means much more weak and cheap. But truth is so great a thing, that we ought not to disdain any mediation that will guide us to it. Reason has so many forms, that we know not which to take; experience has no fewer. The consequence we will draw from the con ference of events is unsure, by reason they are always unlike. There is no quality so universal in this image of things, as diversity and variety. Both the Greeks, the Latins, and we, for the most express example of similitude, have pitch'd upon that of eggs. And yet there have been men, particularly one at Delphos, who could distinguish marks of difference amongst eggs so well, that he never mistook one for another and, having many hens, could tell which had laid it. Dissimilitude intrudes it self of it self in our works; no art can arrive at a perfect similitude. Neither Perozet, nor any other card-maker, can so carefully polish and blank the backs of his cards, that some gamesters will not distinguish them by only seeing them shuffled by another. Resemblance does not so much make one, as difference makes another. Nature has oblig'd her self to make nothing other that was not unlike. And yet I am not much pleas'd with his opinion, who thought by the multitude of laws to curb the authority of judges, in cutting them out the cantels. He was not aware that there is as much liberty and stretch in the interpretation of laws, as in their fashion; and they but fool themselves who think to lessen and stop our debates by summoning us to the express words of the Bible: for as much as human wit does not find the field less spacious wherein to controvert the sence of another, than to deliver his own; and, as if there were less animosity and tartness in glossing than invention. We see how much he was deceiv'd; for we have more laws in France than in all the rest of the world besides; and more than would be necessary for the government of all the worlds of Epicurus. "Ut olim flagitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus."-Tacitus. "So that as formerly we were sick of wickedness, we are now sick of the laws:" and yet we have left so much to the debate and decision of our judges, that there never was so full and uncontroul'd a liberty. What have our legislators got by culling out an hundred thousand particular cases, and for those, by having added an hundred

850

LAWYERS AND PHYSICIANS ARE PESTS.

thousand laws? This number holds no manner of proportion with the infinite diversity of human actions; the multiplication of our inventions, will never arrive at the variety of examples. Add to them an hundred times as many more, it will not nevertheless ever happen, that of events to come, there shall any one fall out, that, in this great number of millions of events so chosen and recorded, shall jump with any one, to which it can be so exactly coupled and compar'd, that there will not remain some circumstances and diversity which will require a variety of judgment. There is little relation betwixt our actions that are in perpetual mutation, and fixt and immobile laws; the most to be desir'd, are those that are the most rare, the most simple and general: and I am further of opinion, that we were better to have none at all, than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have. Nature always gives them better, and more pure than those are we make our selves; witness the picture of the golden age, and the state wherein we see nations live, who have no other. Some there are, who, for their only judg, take the first passer by that travels along their mountains, to determine their cause; and others, who on their market-day, chuse out some one amongst them upon the place, to decide all their controversies. What danger would there be, that the wisest should so determine ours according to occurrences, and by sight, without obligation of example and consequence? "Every shoe to his own foot." King Ferdinand sent colonies to the Indies, and wisely provided that they should not carry along with them any students of the long robe, for fear lest suits should get footing in that new world; as being a science, in its own nature, the mother of altercation and decision ; judging with Plato, that lawyers and physicians are the pests of a country. Whence does it come to pass that our common languages, so easie for all other uses, become obscure, and are unintelligible in wills and contracts? And that he who so clearly expresses himself, what ever he speaks or writes, cannot find in this any way of declaring himself that does not fall into doubt and contradiction? If it be not that these princes of that art, applying themselves with a peculiar attention to invent and cull out hard words, and contrive artificial clauses, have so weigh'd every syllable, and so thoroughly sifted every sort of quirk, that they are now confounded and intangled in the infinity of figures, and so many minute divisions, that they can no more fall into any rule or prescription nor any certain intelligence. "Confusum est quicquid usque in pulverem sectum est.” "Whatever is beaten into powder is confus'd." As you have children trying to bring a mass of quick silver into a certain number of parts, the more they press and work it, and endeavour to reduce it to their own will, the more they irritate the liberty of this generous metal; it mocks and evades their endeavour, and sparkles it self into so many separate bodies, as frustrates all account: so is it here, for in subdividing these subtilties, we teach men to increase their doubts, they pull

us into a way of stretching and diversifying difficulties, they lengthen and disperse them. In sowing and retailing of questions, they make the world to fructifie and increase in uncertainties and disputes. As the earth is made fertile by being crumbled and husbanded deep. "Difficultatem facit doctrina." "Doctrine begets difficulty." We doubted of Ulpian, and are now more perplex'd with Bartolus and Baldus. We should put out the trace of this innumerable diversity of opinions, not adorn ourselves with it, and fill posterity with crotchets. I know not what to say to it, but experience makes it manifest, that so many interpretations dissipate truth, and break it. Aristotle writ to be understood, which if he could not be, much less will another that is not so good at it; and a third than he who express'd his own thoughts. We open the matter, and spill it in pouring out. Of one subject we make a thousand, and in multiplying and subdividing them, fall again into the infinity of atoms of Epicurus. Never did two men make the same judgment of the same thing; and 'tis impossible to find two opinions exactly alike, not only in several men, but in the same men, at divers hours. I oft find matter of doubt, of things which the commentary disdains to take notice of. I am most apt to stumble in an even country, like some horses that I have known, who make most trips in the smoothest way. Who will not say that glosses augment doubts and ignorance, since there's no one book to be found, either human or divine, which the world busies it self about the difficulties of, which are clear'd by interpretation. The hundredth commentator still refers you to the next, more knotty and perplext than he. When were we ever agreed amongst our selves, that a book had enow, and that there was now no more to be said? This is most apparent in the law. We give the authority of law to infinite doctors, infinite arrests, and as many interpretations; yet do we find any end of the need of interpreting? Is there for all that any progress or advancement towards peace; or do we stand in need of any fewer advocates and judges, than when this great mass of law was yet in its first infancy? We on the contrary darken and bury all intelligence. We can no more discover it, but at the mercy of so many fences and barriers. Men do not know the natural disease of the mind, it does nothing but ferret and inquire, and is eternally wheeling, juggling and perplexing it self; and like silk-worms, suffocates it self with its own web. Mus in pice." “A mouse in a pitch barrel." It thinks it discovers at a great distance I know not what glimpse of light and imaginary truth; but whilst running to it so many difficulties, hindrances, and new inquisitions cross its way, that it loses its way, and is made drunk with the motion. Not much unlike Æsop's dogs, that seeing something like a dead body floating in the sea, and not being able to approach it, attempted to drink the water, to lay the passage dry, and so drown'd themselves. To which, what one Crates said of the writings of Heraclitus, falls pat

52 WE DO NOTHING BUT COMMENT UPON ONE ANOTHER.

enough, “That they requir'd a reader who could swim well, that the depth and weight of his doctrine might not overwhelm and choak him." 'Tis nothing but particular weakness that makes us content our selves with what others, or our selves have found out in this choice of knowledge; one of better understanding would not rest so content, there is always room for one to succeed, nay even for our selves, and every where else throughout; there is no end of our inquisitions, our end is in the other world. 'Tis a sign either that wit is grown shorter-sighted when it is satisfied, or that it is grown weary. No generous mind can stop in it self, it will still pretend further, and beyond its power; it has sallies beyond its effects. If it do not advance and press forward, and retire, rush, turn and wheel about, 'tis but sprightly by halves: its pursuits are without bound or method, its aliment is admiration, ambiguity the chace; which Apollo sufficiently declared, in always speaking to us in a double, obscure and oblique sence; not feeding, but amusing and puzling us. 'Tis an irregular and perpetual motion, without example and without aim. His inventions heat, pursue and introduce one another.

Ainsi voit on en un ruisseau coulant

Sans fin l'une eau, apres l'autre roulant,

Et tout de rang, d'un eternel conduit,
L'une suit l'autre, et l'une autre fuit.

Par cette-cy, celle là est poussée,

Et cette cy par l'autre est devancée :

Tousiours l'eau va dans l'eau et tousiours est ce

Mesme ruisseau, et tousiours eau diverse.

So in a running stream one wave we see
After another roul incessantly,

And, as they glide, each does successively
Pursue the other, each the other fly:

By this that's evermore push'd on, and this
By that continually preceded is :

The water still does into water swill,

Still the same brook, but diff'rent water still.

There is more ado to interpret interpretations than things, and more books upon books than upon all other subjects, we do nothing but comment upon one another. Every place says, with commentaries of authors there is great scarcity. Is it not the principal and most reputed knowledge of our ages to understand the learned? Is it not the common and almost end of all studies? Our opinions are grafted upon one another; the first serves for a stock to the second, the second to the third, and so on. Thus step by step we climb the ladder. From whence it comes to pass, that he which is mounted highest has oft more honour than merit; for he is got up but a grain upon the shoulders