(17.) Nothing better demonstrates how men regard science and literature, and of what use they are considered in the State, than the recompense assigned to them, and the idea generally entertained of those persons who resolve to cultivate them. There is not a mere handicraft nor ever so vile a position, that is not a surer, quicker, and more certain way to wealth. An actor lolling in his coach[607] bespatters the face of Corneille walking on foot. With many people learning and pedantry are synonymous.
Often when a rich man speaks and speaks of science, the learned must be silent, listen, and applaud, at least if they would be considered something else besides learned.
(18.) A certain boldness is required to vindicate learning before some persons strongly prejudiced against learned men, whom they call ill-mannered, wanting in tact, unfit for society, and whom they send back, stripped in this way, to their study and their books. As ignorance is easy, and not difficult to acquire, many people embrace it; and these form a large majority at court and in the city, and overpower the learned. If the latter allege in their favour the names of dʼEstrées, de Harlay, Bossuet, Séguier, Montausier, Wardes, Chevreuse, Novion, Lamoignon, Scudéry, Pellisson,[608] and of many other personages equally learned and polite; nay, if they dare mention the great names of Chartres, Condé, Conti, Bourbon, Maine, and Vendôme,[609] as princes who to the noblest and loftiest acquirements add Greek atticism and Roman urbanity, those persons do not hesitate to reply that such examples are exceptional; and the sound arguments brought forward are powerless against public opinion. However, it seems that people should be more careful in giving their decisions, and at least not take the trouble of asserting that intellects producing such great progress in science, and making persons think well, judge well, speak well, and write well, could not acquire polite accomplishments.
No very great intelligence is necessary to have polished manners, but a great deal is needed to polish the mind.
(19.) A politician says: “Such a man is learned, and therefore not fit for business; I would not trust him to take an inventory of my wardrobe;” and he is quite right, Ossat, Ximenes, and Richelieu[610] were learned, but were they men of ability and considered able ministers? “He understands Greek,” continues our statesman, “he is a pedant,[611] a philosopher.” According to this argument an Athenian fruit-woman who probably spoke Greek was a philosopher, and the Bignons and Lamoignons[612] are mere pedants, and nobody can doubt it, for they know Greek. How whimsical and crack-brained was the great, the wise, and judicious Antoninus to say: “That a people would be happy whose ruler was philosophising, or who should be governed by a philosopher or a scribbler.”[613]
Languages are but the keys or entrance-gates of sciences, and nothing more; he that despises the one slights the other. It matters little whether languages are ancient or modern, dead or living, but whether they are barbarous or polite and whether the books written in them are good or bad. Suppose the French language should one day meet with the fate of the Greek and Latin tongues; would it be considered pedantic to read Molière or La Fontaine some ages after French had ceased to be a living language?
(20.) If I mention Eurypilus, you say he is a wit.
You also call a man who shapes a beam a carpenter, and him who builds a wall a bricklayer. Let me ask you where this wit has his workshop, and what is his sign? Can we recognise him by his dress? What are his tools? Is it a wedge, a hammer, an anvil? Where does he rough-hew or shape his work, and where is it for sale? A workman is proud of his trade; is Eurypilus proud of being a wit? If he is proud of it, he is a coxcomb, who debases the natural dignity of his intellect, and has a low and mechanical mind, which never seriously applies itself to what is either lofty or intellectual; and if he is not proud of anything, and this I understand to be his real character, then he is a sensible and intelligent man. Do you not bestow the title of “wit” on every pretender to learning and on every wretched poet? Do you not think you have some intelligence, and if so, no doubt a first-rate and practical one? But do you consider yourself, therefore, a wit, and would you not deem it an insult to be called so? However, I give you leave to call Eurypilus so, and this ironically, as fools do, and without the least discrimination, or as ignorant people do who console themselves by irony for the want of a certain culture which they perceive in others.
(21.) I do not wish to hear anything more about pen, ink, or paper, style, printer, or press! Venture no more to tell me: “Antisthenes, you are a first-rate author; continue to write. Shall we never see a folio volume of yours? Speak of all the virtues and vices in one connected and methodical treatise, without end,” and they should also add, “without any sale.” I renounce everything that either was, is, or will be a book! Beryllus swoons when he sees a cat,[614] and I on beholding a book. Am I better fed or warmer clothed; is my room sheltered against northern blasts; have I so much as a feather-bed,[615] after having had my works for sale for more than twenty years? You say I have a great name and a first-rate reputation: you may just as well tell me that I have a stock of air I cannot dispose of. Have I one grain of that metal which procures all things? The low pettifogger[616] swells his bill, get costs paid which never came out of his pocket, and a count or a magistrate becomes his son-in-law. A man in a red or filemot-coloured dress[617] is changed into a secretary, and in a little time is richer than his master, who remains a commoner whilst he buys a title for hard cash. B ...[618] enriches himself by some waxwork show; B ... by selling some bottled river-water.[619] Another quack[620] arrives with one trunk from the other side of the Pyrenees; it is scarcely unpacked when pensions rain on him, and he is ready to return whence he came with plenty of mules and cartloads full of property. Mercury is Mercury,[621] and nothing else; and as gold alone cannot pay his go-betweens and his intrigues, he obtains, moreover, favour and distinctions. To confine myself to lawful gain, you pay a tiler for his tiles and a workman for his time and labour; but do you pay an author for his thoughts and writings? and if his thoughts are excellent, do you pay him liberally? Does he furnish his house or become ennobled by thinking or writing well? Men must be clothed and shaved,[622] have houses with doors that shut close; but where is the necessity of their being well informed? It were folly, simplicity, stupidity, continues Antisthenes, to set up for an author or a philosopher! Get me, if possible, some lucrative post which may make my life easy, enable me to lend some money to a friend, and give to those who cannot return it; and then I can write for recreation or indolently, just as Tityrus[623] whistles or plays on the flute; Iʼll have that or nothing, and will write on those conditions; I will yield to the violence of those who take me by the throat and exclaim, “You shall write!” I have the title of my new book ready for them: “Of beauty, goodness, truth, ideas, of first principles, by Antisthenes, a fishmonger.”