The Simpleton is one type; his folly may, and should be, cured by instruction. But he is disappointingly dull of hearing and “slow at the uptake”: How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? cries Wisdom to them (Pr. 122). Nevertheless, although the teacher may fail to give them efficient brains, he can perhaps save them from evil and, in a quiet, humble way they may learn that fear of the Lord which is a sufficiency of true Wisdom. Wherefore on the whole the Wise spoke to these men sympathetically and hopefully: so in the exordium which states the purpose of the Book of Proverbs we are told that it is meant to give prudence to the simple (Pr. 14).
To the average fool the Wise were severe. Were they fair in being so? Surely many of these fools were either weak-willed or coarse, as the case might be, because they were just uninstructed “simpletons?” No! These are they who have opportunity but refuse or neglect it. Therefore their condition is culpable, and the Wise do well not to mince matters concerning the folly of their conduct. Such persons require to be kicked into sense, and the Wise were of opinion that in some instances the kicking might with advantage begin by being physical. Hold! Of whom are we speaking? Of the inhabitants of Jerusalem? Yes, but, suppose we were analysing the population of our own times, would there not be more than a few found guilty of just such folly—men and women undisciplined in mind and soul? Possessing plenty of wits and much capacity for moral feeling, they fling their chances aside. It is a perilous attitude towards the realities of life, for refusal to learn grows ever easier as life goes on. What chance do thousands give themselves of acquiring Christian faith, or even of maintaining or improving their intellectual and moral qualities? Do they seek for the good in the Christian Churches, or for the faults, and so miss the good? How much study have they given to the knowledge of God in Christ? Many have consulted their Bradshaw more often than their Bible. What efforts do they make to apprehend the meaning and value of Christianity in face of modern knowledge and in view of modern conditions? “Last Sunday you managed to evade the message which God sent you: that makes it much easier to evade the message He sends you to-day. Next Sunday you will be almost totally indifferent. Soon you will get out of reach of His word altogether, saying it does you no good. Then you will deny that it is His word or His message.”[61] This reference to Church-going is of course but one point out of many: the principle at issue is one which vitally concerns the whole of a man’s attitude to life. The fool is almost unteachable, and that of course is his supreme peril. He is so self-confident, so unreasonable, so certain he is right and others wrong. He does not dream of becoming wiser, because already he knows himself to be as wise as Solomon. Therefore the Sages are justified in their unsparing rebukes. What is wrong with the fool, is primarily his moral condition; and accordingly for the moment we need not trouble to distinguish between the weak fool and the coarse. What is censured in them both is neither their present silliness nor their grossness, but their unwillingness to learn. They have what amounts to an error of moral vision, and they desperately need to realise the fact. Mr. Chesterton has somewhere said, “The fool is one who has an impediment in his thought. It is not, as the modern fellows say, put there by his grandmother. I have wandered over the world (so to speak) trying to find some faithful, simple soul who really believed in his own grandmother. He does not exist. The first act of the fool, when he is articulate, is to teach his grandmother how to suck eggs. Fools have no reverence. Fools have no humility.” Doubtless a man must not be blamed for the initial quality of his mind, and possibly the Wise were too caustic to the congenitally stupid. But then the Wisdom they were teaching was not intellectually difficult to acquire; it was not book-learning but that Wisdom which is from on high and can be revealed to babes and sucklings.
As for the third class, the Scorner or Chief Fool; he too suffers from corruption of moral vision. But with him the distortion is desperate: he calls white black and black white. For this alert, deliberate Fool, the Wise had little hope or none at all; he has chosen the path of Folly with his eyes open. All they can do is to meet his scorn with a greater scorn, and make their appeal in his hearing. One does not wonder that the Wise were baffled by this type of man. There is hope of such a person, but the hope is in the fact of Christ. This Fool has wit enough to rethink the situation, if he chose. He may some day have imperative cause to reconsider his view of life, and so may discover first that Christ is truth, and then learn that Christ can pardon.
We turn now to the sayings themselves, or rather to a selection from them, for the sons of Folly provoked very many proverbs.
A number are humorous and spicy—the sort of phrases that might catch the ear of a crowd, raise a laugh at the fool’s expense, and remain fixed in the hearer’s memory by the barb of wit. Think, for instance, of the feeble, vacillating eyes that so often accompany and reflect a weak intellect or character:
Wisdom stands ever before the mind of a prudent man,
But the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth (Pr. 1724).
and for comment on the mind behind the eyes, this will do:
The mind of a fool is like a cartwheel,
And his thoughts like a rolling axle-tree (E. 335).
The Wise laid their finger with much accuracy on the salient features of the foolish character. Thus in the dullard they point to his credulity, The simpleton believeth every word, but the prudent looketh well to his going (Pr. 1415). The fool is apt to be greedy of reward, The fool will say “I have no friend and I have no thanks for my good deeds (E. 2016); and grudging in his charity, To-day he will lend but to-morrow he will ask it again (E. 2015), although himself a spendthrift, Precious treasure abides in the Wise man’s house, but a foolish man swallows it up (Pr. 2120, cp. Pr. 141). He is a blusterer, A Wise man is cautious and avoids misfortune, but the fool rageth and is confident (Pr. 1416); shallow and frivolous, As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool (Ecclesiastes 76); garrulous, saying what he thinks before he thinks what he says, The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the mouth of wise men is in their heart. (E. 2126); changeable and unreliable, The foolish man changeth as the moon (E. 2711); Take not counsel with a fool, for he will not be able to conceal the matter (E. 817). He is a bully often, but his courage is unstable, Pales set on a high place will not stand against the wind; so the cowardice in a foolish heart will not bear up against any fear (E. 2218). He aspires to be witty, but seldom has wit enough, The legs of the lame hang loose: so does a parable in the mouth of fools (Pr. 267).
Nevertheless the fool’s pride and self-confidence is complete, The way of the foolish is right in his own eyes (Pr. 1215; cp. 143, 2826); so that he loses sense of the awfulness of evil and even enjoys it, It is as sport to a fool to do wickedness (Pr. 1023, cp. 1319); sneering at those who fain would give him guidance, A fool despiseth his father’s correction ... a fool scorns his mother (Pr. 155, 20); and hating information, A fool hath no delight in understanding (Pr. 182). Thus it is almost useless to attempt to instruct a fool—here is a counsel of despair, Speak not in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words (Pr. 239)—and here is the sigh of the weary teacher, Wherefore is there a price in the hands of the fool to buy wisdom, seeing that he hath no wits? (Pr. 1716). The inward parts of a fool are like a broken vessel, and he will hold no knowledge (E. 2114). He that teacheth a fool is as one that glueth a potsherd together (E. 227). The fool, in fact, is in uttermost peril of being incorrigible, He that discourseth to a fool is as one discoursing to a man that slumbereth; at the end thereof he will say “What is it?” (E. 228). Altogether it is hard to suffer fools gladly: