François La Rochefoucauld

“ It might with more speciousness be objected to the maxims that they are contrary in their tendency to the spirit of that charity which "thinketh no evil, believeth all things, and hopeth all things;" that we should be more ready to assign an action, if possible, to a good, than an evil motive, and that the low opinion of our fellow-men which we may acquire from La Rochefoucauld's observations, only tends to render our own tempers misanthropic and morose, without in any way conducing to practical morality. ”

“ With regard to the question whether La Rochefoucauld meant to represent self-love, in its more extended sense, as the motive of all human actions, it seems not altogether fair to charge him with the inculcation of any particular theory or system, in the same manner as if the maxims were formal deductions from a regularly reasoned treatise, instead of being, as they are, unconnected observations on mankind and their actions. ”

“ Now all this confusion might be avoided by stating to ourselves wherein the idea of self-love consists, as distinguished from all particular movements towards particular external objects, the appetites of sense, resentment, compassion, curiosity, ambition, and the rest. When this is done, if the words 'selfish' and 'interested' cannot be parted with, but must be applied to every thing, yet to avoid such total confusion of all language, let the disitnction be made by epithets,—and the first may be called cool or settled selfishness, and the other passionate or sensual selfishness. ”

“ Should it still be considered that La Rochefoucauld presents us with too low a view of human nature to serve the purposes of morality, it should be remembered, in his defence as an author, that the times in which he lived, and the political and moral state of the society of his day, are known to have closely corresponded with the general picture he has offered us, and in this respect may be said to afford him a complete justification. ”

“ Nothing tends so much t disgust men with goodness, as the hollowness and artificiality of what is palmed on them for goodness. Repeatedly disappointed in their search for the reality, they are led to doubt its existence, and it is this feeling which is embodied in the bitter exclamation of the despairing Roman:—" Virtue, I have worshipped thee as a real good, but at length find thee an empty name." ”

“ There may certainly appear some want of charity in any attempt to throw discredit on the motives of an action; but in practice it will be found that every well-constituted mind, in proportion as it becomes more sensible of the numerous and inherent failings of human nature, is more and more willing to make allowance for weaknesses it knows to be so difficult to remedy, for temptations which it feels are so hard to struggle with ”

“ Men have a direct interest in maintaining appearances; if they have not the virtue, they at least may " assume it," and they are naturally irritated at the dissipation of those delusions which facilitated the assumption. ”

“ Moralists as well as theologians have been earnest in urging this point, and would appear to have been successful, at least in theory; but when an author like La Rochefoucauld attempts to elicit the same principle from a subtle and penetrating analysis of human actions, the world seems to shrink from the practical application of the theory it had approved. The reason appears to be, that a general statement of a principle, as it concerns no one in particular, comes home to no one more than another ”

“ He has unmasked with consummate skill the appearances of virtue so frequently put forward by men, and every one must be entertained by the exquisite subtlety of manner in which he has laid bare feelings and motives always most carefully hidden, often unacknowledged, sometimes unknown to the actors themselves. ”

“ The Duke de Rochefoucauld died with philosophic tranquillity, at Paris, in 1680, in his sixty-eighth year. This nobleman wrote "Mémoires de la Règne d'Anne d'Autriche," 2 vols. 12mo., 1713, an energetic and faithful representation of that fretful predicament as Macihiavelli with regard to political morality. J. J. Rousseau, who was certainly not free from selfishness, has abused La Rochefoucauld's maxims, and yet, in his "Emile," he observes that "selfishness is the mainspring of all our actions;" ”

“ La Rochefoucauld is very far from denying, as has been represented, the reality of virtue. Several of the maxims show a complete recognition of its existence, and indeed a desire that it should be freed from the odium created by the pretenders that usurp its name. The precise amount of truth which is allowed to be found in the maxims will perhaps always vary with the experience or the feelings of individual readers: but it may be remarked as strange, that any general denunciations of the depravity of human nature are almost always tacitly, if not readily, acquiesced in ”

“ My hair is black, curling naturally, and, moreover, thick enough and long enough to give me some pretensions to a fine head. In my countenance there is something sorrowful and proud, which gives many people an idea that I am contemptuous, although I am far from being so. My gestures are easy, indeed rather too much so; producing a great degree of action in discourse. ”

“ Beyond the gratification of an absurd ambition, it is almost impossible to discover any object that the contending parties had in view; and the motives of individuals are still more difficult to penetrate, from the conflicting accounts given by the various actors themselves, of the transactions in which they were engaged. ”

“ Another circumstance for which due allowance should be made, has been already hinted at, namely, that the mode of composition in detached maxims, to be at all effective, requires a generality of expression greater than is strictly warranted by reason, or is perhaps, really intended by the author. Neither is it fair as before remarked, to charge La Rochefoucauld with any deliberate system of vilifying human nature, or with any theory destructive to morality. Like Montaigne, he might plead, that he was not so much an instructor as an observer:—"Others form man ”

“ It opens gates suicidally on the morals of the actor, because a long course of imposition on others invariably ends in self-deceit; "We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others," as our Author remarks, "that at length we disguise ourselves to ourselves." The history of the world is full of examples of men whose career is represented in these words. But this assumption is still more pernicious to the interests of virtue itself To use a common illustrator nothing depreciates a sound coinage more than the existence of well-executed counterfeits. ”

“ It is, besides, no mean advantage to be spared the exertion of wading through and deciding upon the successive stages, each perhaps admitting of discussion, of a tedious and involved argument, and to be presented at once with ready-made conclusions. ”

“ Notwithstanding Bacon's second remark on aphorisms, it seems questionable whether the mind is not more disposed to assent to a proposition when clearly and boldly announced on the ipse dixit of a writer, than when arrived at as the termination of a chain of reasoning. Where so much proof is required, men are apt to think much doubt exists ”

“ Maxims" that " self-love" and " interest" are clearly distinguished from each other. If it were not so, and La Rochefoucauld considered interest to be man's only motive, Maxims 415, that "Men more easily surrender their interests' than their tastes," and 512, that "There are more people without interest than without envy," would involve palpable absurdities, Irt fact, " self-love" and " interest," in the "Maxims," stand to each other in their real relation I of a' whole and one of its parts. ”

“ The Scriptures have laid down that the heart of man is "deceitful and desperately wicked;" the Church, that "man is far gone from original righteousness and has no strength of himself to turn to good works;" ”

“ Francis, the fifth count, was created the Duke de la Rochefoucauld in 1622, and was father to Francis, the second duke, the celebrated author of the Maxims, who was born on the 15th December, 1613. The principal events of his life are matter of history rather than biography, as he was a leading actor in the numerous and complicated state intrigues which took place in France after the death of Louis XIII., and during the minority of his successor. ”

“ Rien n'engage tant un esprit raisonnable à supporter tranquillement des parens et des amis les torts qu'ils ont à son égard, que la réflexion qu'il fait sur les vices de l'humanité, et combien il est pénib aux hommes d'être constans, généreux, fidèles, d'être touch d'une amitié plus forte que leur intérêt. ”

“ Maxims," to which, no doubt, the work owes a great part of its popularity. If not precisely the in* ventor. La Rochefoucauld is, at all events, the model of this mode of writing, in which success indeed is rare, but when attained, it has many charms for the reader. [4] "The writing in aphorisms," as Bacon observes, (Adv. of Learn.,) "hath may excellent virtues whereto the writing in method doth not approach. For first, it trieth the writer whether he be superficial or solid; for aphorisms, except they be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences ”

“ Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,
as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were disjointed, would come to little. Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent or belief, but less fit to point to action; for they carry a kind of demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and therefore satisfy ”

“ He is insensible alike to hatred and to friei ship, whatever pains he may be at to appear taken up y^ the one or the other. He is incapable of envy or of ayarii whether from virtue or from carelessness. He has m rowed more from his friends than a private person cou ever hope to be able to repay;—he has felt the vanity • acquiring so much on credit, and of undertaking to disdiar it. He has neither taste nor refinement; he is amused 1 every thing, and pleased by nothing. ”

“ For the sake of renderitig the turn of expression more smart and epigrammatic, truth is sometimes distorted, sometimes laid down in such general and unqualified terms as sober reason would not warrant. ”

“ La Rochefoucauld was probably under many obligations in other respects to Montaigne; but it seems difficult to select two writers more dissimilar in their mode of expressing themselves than the rambling, gossiping Montaigne and the precise, sententious La Rochefoucauld. ↑ See Aristot. Rhet. book ii. c. 21. ↑ Montaigne is rather more plain spoken. "We ought to love temperance for itself, and in obedience to God who has commanded it and chastity; but what I am forced to by catarrhs, or owe to the stone, is neither chastity nor temperance." ”

“ D peut hi les hommes en général, où il 7 a si peu de vertu; mais excuse les particuliers, il les aime même par des mot plus relevés, et il s'étudie à mériter le moins qu'il se pe une pareille indulgence."* It might be sufficient, therefoi to say that the maxims are only uncharitable in appearane but that, in reality, by increasing our knowledge of hum; nature, they tend to render us more indulgent to hum weakness ”

“ Maxims," is full of faults. ↑ Notwithstanding their popularity, and Voltaire's assertion that they are known by heart, the " Maxims" have been most unblushingly pillaged on almost all sides; indeed there is hardly any modern collection of thoughts or aphorisms which is not indebted to this work. ”

“ But, a certain sombre cast of countenance contributes to make seem more reserved than I really am, and as it is nol our power to get rid of a disagreeable look proceeding fr the natural disposition of the features, I conceive that, ei after I shall have corrected myself within, the same I marks will, nevertheless, be always apparent outside. ”

“ Voltaire's account of it, in his " Age of Louis XIV.," is perhaps the most generally acquiesced in:—"One of the works which most cohtaibnted- te~form the taste of the nation, and to give it a spirit of justness and precision, was the collection of the 'Maxims' of Francis, Due de la Rochefoucauld. Though there is scarcely more than one truth running through the book—^that ' self-love is the motive of every thing;' yet Ais thought is presented under so many various aspects, that it is almost always striking; it is not so much a book as materials for ornamenting a book. ”

“ In his preface to the edition 1665,Segrais says,—"The best method that the reader c adopt, is at once to be convinced that not one of the mi ims is applicable to himself in particular, and that he alo is excepted, although they appear to be generally appli< ble; then I will answer for it, he will be one of the first
"He whose opinion of mankind is not too elevated, will alwa be the most benevolent, because the most indulgent to the errors ddental to human perfection; to place our nature in too flattering view is only to court disappointment and end in misanthropy."—Bi WEB Lttton. ”

“ He avoids, with oo siderable address, allowing people to penetrate the slig acquaintance he has with every thing. The retreat he h just made from the world, is the most brilliant, and tl most unreal action of his life ”