“And yet,” said Clarence, “that seems a melancholy truth for the mass of the people, who have no time for the researches of wisdom.”
“Not so much so as at first we might imagine,” answered Mordaunt: “the few smooth all paths for the many. The precepts of knowledge it is difficult to extricate from error but, once discovered, they gradually pass into maxims; and thus what the sage’s life was consumed in acquiring becomes the acquisition of a moment to posterity. Knowledge is like the atmosphere: in order to dispel the vapour and dislodge the frost, our ancestors felled the forest, drained the marsh, and cultivated the waste, and we now breathe without an effort, in the purified air and the chastened climate, the result of the labour of generations and the progress of ages! As to-day, the common mechanic may equal in science, however inferior in genius, the friar [Roger Bacon] whom his contemporaries feared as a magician, so the opinions which now startle as well as astonish may be received hereafter as acknowledged axioms, and pass into ordinary practice. We cannot even tell how far the sanguine theories of certain philosophers [See Condorcet “On the Progress of the Human Mind,” written some years after the supposed date of this conversation, but in which there is a slight, but eloquent and affecting, view of the philosophy to which Mordaunt refers.] deceive them when they anticipate, for future ages, a knowledge which shall bring perfection to the mind, baffle the diseases of the body, and even protract to a date now utterly unknown the final destination of life: for Wisdom is a palace of which only the vestibule has been entered; nor can we guess what treasures are hid in those chambers of which the experience of the past can afford us neither analogy nor clew.”
“It was, then,” said Clarence, who wished to draw his companion into speaking of himself, “it was, then, from your addiction to studies not ordinarily made the subject of acquisition that you date (pardon me) your generosity, your devotedness, your feeling for others, and your indifference to self?”
“You flatter me,” said Mordaunt, modestly (and we may be permitted to crave attention to his reply, since it unfolds the secret springs of a character so singularly good and pure), “you flatter me: but I will answer you as if you had put the question without the compliment; nor, perhaps, will it be wholly uninstructive, as it will certainly be new, to sketch, without recurrence to events or what I may call exterior facts, a brief and progressive History of One Human Mind.”
“Our first era of life is under the influence of the primitive feelings: we are pleased, and we laugh; hurt, and we weep: we vent our little passions the moment they are excited: and so much of novelty have we to perceive, that we have little leisure to reflect. By and by, fear teaches us to restrain our feelings: when displeased, we seek to revenge the displeasure, and are punished; we find the excess of our joy, our sorrow, our anger, alike considered criminal, and chidden into restraint. From harshness we become acquainted with deceit: the promise made is not fulfilled, the threat not executed, the fear falsely excited, and the hope wilfully disappointed; we are surrounded by systematized delusion, and we imbibe the contagion.”
“From being forced into concealing thoughts which we do conceive, we begin to affect those which we do not: so early do we learn the two main tasks of life, To Suppress and To Feign, that our memory will not carry us beyond that period of artifice to a state of nature when the twin principles of veracity and belief were so strong as to lead the philosophers of a modern school into the error of terming them innate.” [Reid: On the Human Mind.]
“It was with a mind restless and confused, feelings which were alternately chilled and counterfeited (the necessary results of my first tuition), that I was driven to mix with others of my age. They did not like me, nor do I blame them. ‘Les manieres que l’on neglige comme de petites choses, sont souvent ce qui fait que les hommes decident de vous en bien ou en mal. [“Those manners which one neglects as trifling are often the cause of the opinion, good or bad, formed of you by men.”] Manner is acquired so imperceptibly that we have given its origin to Nature, as we do the origin of all else for which our ignorance can find no other source. Mine was unprepossessing: I was disliked, and I returned the feeling; I sought not, and I was shunned. Then I thought that all were unjust to me, and I grew bitter and sullen and morose: I cased myself in the stubbornness of pride; I pored over the books which spoke of the worthlessness of man; and I indulged the discontent of myself by brooding over the frailties of my kind.”
“My passions were strong: they told me to suppress them. The precept was old, and seemed wise: I attempted to enforce it. I had already begun, in earlier infancy, the lesson: I had now only to renew it. Fortunately I was diverted from this task, or my mind in conquering its passions would have conquered its powers. I learned in after lessons that the passions are not to be suppressed; they are to be directed; and, when directed, rather to be strengthened than subdued.”
“Observe how a word may influence a life: a man whose opinion I esteemed, made of me the casual and trite remark, that ‘my nature was one of which it was impossible to augur evil or good: it might be extreme in either.’ This observation roused me into thought: could I indeed be all that was good or evil? had I the choice, and could I hesitate which to choose? But what was good and what was evil? That seemed the most difficult inquiry.”
“I asked and received no satisfactory reply: in the words of Erasmus, ‘Totius negotii caput ac fontem ignorant, divinant, ac delirant omnes;’ [“All ignore, guess, and rave about the head and fountain of the whole question at issue.”] so I resolved myself to inquire and to decide. I subjected to my scrutiny the moralist and the philosopher. I saw that on all sides they disputed, but I saw that they grew virtuous in the dispute: they uttered much that was absurd about the origin of good, but much more that was exalted in its praise; and I never rose from any work which treated ably upon morals, whatever were its peculiar opinions, but I felt my breast enlightened and my mind ennobled by my studies. The professor of one sect commanded me to avoid the dogmatist of another as the propagator of moral poison; and the dogmatist retaliated on the professor: but I avoided neither; I read both, and turned all ‘into honey and fine gold.’ No inquiry into wisdom, however superficial, is undeserving attention. The vagaries of the idlest fancy will often chance, as it were, upon the most useful discoveries of truth, and serve as a guide to after and to slower disciples of wisdom; even as the peckings of birds in an unknown country indicate to the adventurous seamen the best and the safest fruits.”