Charles-François Tiphaigne de La Roche

“ I cannot help thinking, that besides the universal spirit, there is in man another principle of a superior order: A principle known by the name of rational soul. It is manifest by the clashing between the passions and reason, that there are in us two contradictory Beings, which oppose one another. If I may be allowed to compare things of so different a nature, I should say that every thing which partakes of the universal soul is like a spunge soaked in water, and immersed in the sea ”

“ Without the itch of talking and writing, would eloquence be known? Would the sciences have been transmitted and improved from generation to generation? Would not you be like so many untaught children, without ideas, without knowledge, without principles? Was it not for the itch of being known, who would take the pains to amuse you, to instruct you, to be useful to you by the most interesting discoveries? Without the itch of ruling, who would busy themselves in unravelling the chaos of the laws, in hearing and judging your quarrels, in watching for your safety? ”

“ And his imagination presents to him nothing dazzling, but wherein his reason discovers all the defects.
He sees the earth, as a point in the boundless space; the series of ages, as an instant in eternal duration; and the chain of human actions, as the 317traces of a cloud of flies in the aerial plains.
In fine, he respects virtue; and, as to the rest, whatever he perceives all around him, even to the most minute things, seems to him all alike. He esteems nothing, he despises nothing, he prefers nothing, and accommodates himself to every thing. ”

“ Even he who, by his function, lifts up his voice against her, dares not paint her in her true colours. In a word, no where does vice appear less vice than at Babylon. Even to the very names, all things are changed, all things are softened. The sincere and honest are now-a-days your modish men who are outwardly all complaisance but inwardly full of corruption: Good company are not the Virtuous but those who excel in palliating vice. The man of fortitude is not he that bears the shocks of fortune unmoved, but he that braves Providence. ”

“ I say nothing of the itch of knowledge, which should always precede that of writing, and which commonly follows it at a good distance, and often never comes at all.
At Babylon, the itch of being singular, is like an epidemical disease. It is pretty well known wherein the Babylonians are alike, but it would be the work of an age, to say wherein they differ. Every one distinguishes himself by some remarkable stroke. ”

“ I saw the earth covered with monuments of all kinds, which human weakness erects to the ambition of heroes. In the very temples, the brass and the marble, which contain the remains of the dead, present images of war, and breathe slaughter: the very statues of those friends of mankind, of those pacific sovereigns, whom the calamities of 60the times involve in short wars, are adorned with warlike instruments and nations in chains, as if Laurels died in blood were only worthy to crown Kings. ”

“ Mankind only breathed, and were soon inflicted with new wounds. When Rome had no more kingdoms to subdue, she had rebels to reduce. Several nations, thinking it a great happiness or a great glory to be parted from the body of the empire, rebelled in Europe, in Asia, in Africa: all were repressed. Thus most of the nations, formerly attacked and defeated, now the aggressors and reduced, continued to be hurled from one misfortune to another; and the following pictures, those which represent the more celebrated times of the first Emperors, will still go on to present to thee spectacles of blood. ”

“ Am I excusable for keeping a mistress, whose luxuriousness will not fail to ruin me in the end? does it become me to appear still in those places, where licentiousness carries inconsiderate youth? I will forsake a world for which I am no longer fit, and will embrace that peaceful and retired life to which my declining age invites me. What I shall retrench from my expences, I will give to my nephew, who is coming; into the world, and should set out with some figure. Since I am dying by degrees, so by degrees he ought to inherit. ”

“ Some accelerate or retard the motions of the blood, others dull or raise the spirits, sometimes they brighten the imagination, and sometimes they cloud it with the gloomy vapours of melancholy. Those that were exhaled from the tree of Love, and dispersed over the earth, brought the seeds of the most alluring pleasure. Till then, men, left to a blind instinct, which inclined them to propagate their species, shared that advantage (if it is one) with the rest of the animals. ”

“ Friendship is like a strong band made of very weak threads twisted together. A Babylonian is tied to no one by the band, but he is tied to each of his fellow-citizens by a single thread.
Surface of piety, formerly much in use and of great influence, now-a-days totally in disrepute. It gives people a certain Gothic air quite ridiculous in the eyes of the moderns. It is now found only among a few adherents to the old bigots, and in an order of men, who, on account of their function, cannot lay it aside, how desirous soever they may be. ”

“ I was on the borders of Guinea towards the desarts that bound it on the North. I contemplated the immense wilds, the very idea of which shocks the firmest mind. On a sudden I was seized with an ardent desire to penetrate into those desarts and see how far nature denies herself to mankind. Perhaps (said I) among these scorching plains there is some fertile spot unknown to the rest of the world. Perhaps I shall find men who have neither been polished nor corrupted by commerce with others. ”

“ How I love 115to see that beautiful sky; those plains that lose themselves at a distance; those pastures filled with flocks; those fields covered with corn? The breath of war blows far from those climates the vertiginous spirit of heroism. This is indeed the seat of peace and tranquillity. My imagination carries me to those delightful vallies: I behold and contemplate nature, whose labours nothing interrupts, producing on every side life and pleasure. ”

“ When once men are troubled with these restless prickings, they cannot be quiet. He, for instance, that is stung 242with the itch of talking, is continually discoursing with every body, correcting those that do not need it, informing those that know more than himself. His visage opens, lengthens, and shortens at pleasure: He laughs with those that laugh, weeps with those that weep, without sharing the joy of the one, or the grief of the other. If by chance he gives you room to say any thing, speak fast and stop not; for, in an instant, he would begin again, and take care not to be interrupted. ”

“ And I say, it must be Folly: for Folly creates her own happiness, independently of any thing cross or disagreeable about her.... You are all of you in the wrong. Nothing general can be assigned that may be productive of the happiness of particular persons. So many men, so many minds: this desires one kind of happiness, and that another: one wishes for riches, another is content with necessaries; this would love and be loved; that considers the passions as the bane of the soul. Every one must study himself and follow his own inclination.... ”

“ The justness of the design, the truth of the expression, the gradation of the shades, the stronger or weaker strokes, the rules of perspective, all these we leave to nature, who, with a sure and never-erring hand, draws upon our canvases images which deceive the eye and make reason to doubt, whether, what are called real objects, are not phantoms which impose upon the sight, the hearing, the feeling, and all the senses at once. ”

“ Art failed not to observe the conduct of Voluptas, and to refine whatever she offered to mankind. He could not bear an interval between pleasures, and would have them succeed one another without intermission. He ransacked all the countries of the world, united all the objects of sensuality, and multiplied a thousand ways the pleasures of sense. Men, surrounded with so many alluring objects, thought themselves happy, and in their intoxication, said: Without Art, Nature is nothing. ”

“ Without the itch of shining, in what kingdom would policy find a vent for those respectable knick-knacks wherewith she adorns those she is pleased to 251distinguish? And yet, this kind of nothings are, for the good of the state, to be acquired at the price even of blood. Thanks to our flies, there are some mad enough to sacrifice all for their sake, and others fools enough to behold them with veneration.
Take away our insects, and men stand stupidly ranged by one another, like so many statues; let our insects fly, and these statues receive new life, and are as busy as bees. ”

“ As there are signs which declare that such a particular person, who thinks himself, and whom you think full of life, is however deprived of it; so there are signs which show the ravages, these concealed deaths have made in the world. For instance, there must have been, of late years, a great mortality among the learned: For, if you observe almost all the productions of modern literature, you will find only a playing with words, destructive principles, dangerous assertions, dazzling hints. Alas! our authors are manifestly but machines, actuated by the universal soul. ”

“ Charlemain’s empire soon fell to pieces. The partitions of the princes, and the ambition of some chiefs, detach whole nations from it. Weak or avaricious emperors give or sell liberty to others. The rest is under particular lords: the sovereign scarce keeps the title and shadow of authority.
Dost thou observe that battle? seest thou a numerous army defeated by fifteen hundred men? It is the æra of the liberty of the Helvetic body. Members of the empire, but oppressed by tyrants, the Swiss shake off the yoke and form a government, the wisdom of which cannot be too much admired. ”

“ A man was not more pleased with his own, than with the happiness of others.
Mankind was yet in infancy, and unacquainted with excesses. Adversity did not depress them to annihilation, nor prosperity puff them up to the loss of their senses. Their wants were few, the arts had not increased them. Frightful poverty appeared not among them, because they knew not riches; every one had necessaries, because none had superfluities. ”

“ With good-sense alone, and the simplest notions which a bough of the philosophical branch furnishes, and which teach to estimate the things of this life according to their value, there will be formed, among the people, a number of practical philosophers; whilst, among the men of letters, all the penetration imaginable, all the knowledge they think they have, all the wit in the world will form only imperfect philosophers. ”

“ The spirit of distrust, finess, and fraud, have displayed all the springs of the soul; the talents have shown themselves, the arts have taken birth; and men begin to enjoy the full extent of their understanding.
“How well these profound speculatists have conjectured, who have told us: Would you have a state flourish? incourage populousness; for real strength and riches consist in a great number of citizens. To incourage populousness, enlarge trade more and more, set up manufactures, introduce arts of every kind; and, to consume superfluities, call in luxury. ”

“ Indeed, one would think that mankind do all in their power to remain 21in a much lower rank than nature designs them! and they seldom fail to turn to their hurt the best dispositions she gives them for their Good. On the Babylonians, for instance, nature has bestowed an inexhaustible fund of agreeableness. Her aim was manifestly to form a people the most aimable. They were made to enliven reason, to root out the thorns that spring from the approaches of the sciences, to soften the austerity of wisdom, and, if possible, to adorn virtue. ”

“ Dost thou not see Europe, that quarter of the earth that hath done so much mischief to the other three? Burning Africa, where the arts and the wants that attend them have never penetrated? Asia, whose luxury, passing to 37the European nations, has done so much good, according to some, and so much hurt, according to others! America, still dyed with the blood of its unhappy inhabitants, whom men of a religion, that breathes peace and good-will, came to convert and barbarously murder? Observe what point of the Globe, thou pleases. ”

“ The moral branch droops, and receives scarce any sap; its withered leaves declare an approaching decay; alas! it is dying. The plans on it are quite effaced. This is too visible from the works that are published of this kind. The ideas of good and evil are confounded; virtue is so disguised as hardly to be known, nor is it easy to discern what is to be called vice. ”

“ I saw men who adored the same God, who sacrificed upon the same altar, who preached to the people the doctrine of peace and love, I saw these very men fall out about unintelligible questions, and mutually hate, persecute, and destroy one another. ”

“ As long as there are men, there will be ambition, traitors, disturbers of the publick peace, merit will be forgotten and the worthless preferred, virtue will be oppressed, vice will be triumphant, countries will be ravaged, cities will be sacked, and thrones will be dyed in blood ”

“ I cannot help thinking man an imperfect creature. I plainly see nature’s efforts to make him reasonable; but I see too these efforts are fruitless. Materials are wanting. There are but two ages: the age of weakness in which we are born and pass two thirds of life; and the age of infancy in which we grow old and die. I have indeed heard talk of an age of reason ”