Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 07 - Prudence - Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Transcript

07 - Prudence - Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson · The Philosophy Insights Collection

0:00
Prudence theme no poet gladly sung fair to old and foul to young. Score
0:08
not thou the love of parts and the articles of arts, grandeur of the
0:13
perfect sphere, thanks the atoms that cohere. What right have I to write
0:20
on prudence? Whereof I have little, and that of the negative sort.
0:27
My prudence consists in avoiding and going without, not in the inventing of means
0:32
and methods, not in adroit steering, not in gentle repairing. I have
0:38
no skill to make money spend well, no genius in my economy. And
0:42
whoever sees my garden discovers that I must have some other garden. Yet I
0:49
love facts and hate lubricidy and people without perception. Then I have the same
0:56
title to write on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness.
1:00
We write with aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint
1:07
those qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the man of energy
1:11
and tactics. The merchant breeds his son for the church or the bar.
1:15
And where a man is not vain and egotistic, he shall find what he
1:19
has not by his praise. Moreover, it would be hardly honest in me
1:25
not to balance these fine lyric words of love and friendship with words of coarser
1:30
sound, And whilst my debt to my senses is real and constant, not
1:34
to own it in passing. Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It
1:41
is the science of appearances. It is the utmost action of the inward life.
1:47
It is God taking thought or oxen. It moves matter after the laws
1:53
of matter. It is content to seek health of body by complying with physical
1:57
conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the intellect. The world
2:02
of the senses is a world of shows. It does not exist for itself,
2:07
but has a symbolic character, and a true prudence or law of shows,
2:13
recognizes the co presence of other laws, and knows that its own office
2:16
is subaltern, knows that it is surface and not center where it works.
2:23
Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimates when it is the natural history
2:28
of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty of laws. Within the
2:32
narrow scope of the senses. There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of
2:39
the world. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three one class
2:46
lived to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth of final good.
2:51
Another class live above this mark, to the beauty of the symbol,
2:54
as the poet and artist, and the naturalist and man of science. A
3:00
third class live above the beauty of the symbol, to the beauty of the
3:04
thing signified. These are wise men. The first class have common sense,
3:10
the second taste, and the third spiritual perception. Once in a long time
3:17
a man traverses the whole scale and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly. Then
3:23
also has a clear eye for its beauty. And lastly, whilst he pitches
3:28
his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not offer to build
3:32
houses and barns thereon, reverencing the splendor of the God which he sees bursting
3:38
through each chink and cranny. The world is filled with the proverbs and acts
3:44
and winkings of a base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as
3:49
if we possessed no other faculties than the palate that knows the touch, the
3:53
eye, and ear. A prudence which adores the rule of three, which
3:59
never subscript, which never gives, which seldom lends and asks, but one
4:03
question of any project, will it bake bread? This is a disease,
4:11
like a thickening of the skin, until the vital organs are destroyed. But
4:15
culture, revealing the high origin of the apparent world and aiming at the perfection
4:20
of the man as the end, degrades everything else, as health and bodily
4:27
life into means. It sees prudence not to be a several faculty, but
4:32
a name for wisdom and virtue, conversing with the body and its wants.
4:36
Cultivated men always feel and speak, so as if a great fortune, the
4:43
achievement of a civil or social measure, great personal influence, a graceful in
4:46
commanding address had their value as proofs of the energy of the spirit. If
4:53
a man lose his balance and immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their
4:58
own sake, he may may be a good weel or pin, but he
5:01
is not a cultivated man. The spurious prudence making the senses final, is
5:10
the god of soughts and cowards, and is the subject of all comedy.
5:14
It is nature's joke, and therefore literatures. The true prudence limits this sensualism
5:20
by admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world this recognition, once made,
5:27
the order of the world, and the distribution of affairs and times,
5:30
being studied with the co perception of their subordinate place, will reward any degree
5:34
of attention for our existence. Thus apparently attached in nature to the Sun and
5:41
the returning moon, and the periods which they mark, so susceptible to climate
5:46
and to country, so alive to social good and evil, so fond of
5:49
splendor, and so tender to hunger and cold and debt, reads all its
5:56
primary lessons out of these books. Prudence does not go behind nature and ask
6:02
whence it is. It takes the laws of the world, whereby man's being
6:06
as conditioned as they are, and keeps these laws that it may enjoy their
6:11
proper good. It respects space and time, climate, want, sleep,
6:16
the law of polarity, growth, and death. There revolve to give bound
6:24
and period to his being on all sides. The Sun and moon, the
6:28
great formalists in the sky. Here lies stubborn matter and will not swer from
6:33
its chemical routine. Here is a planted globe, pierced and belted with natural
6:39
laws, and fenced and distributed externally with civil partitions and properties which impose new
6:45
restraints on the young inhabitant. We eat of the bread which grows in the
6:50
field. We live by the air which blows around us, and we are
6:54
poisoned by the air that is too cold or too hot, too dry or
6:59
too wet. Time, which shows us vacant, indivisible, and divine in
7:03
its coming, is slit and pedaled into trifles and tatters. A door is
7:09
to be painted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood or oil,
7:14
or meal or salt. The house smokes, or I have a headache.
7:18
Then the tax and an affair to be transacted with the man without heart
7:23
or brains, and the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word.
7:30
These eat up the hours. Do what we can. Summer will have its
7:34
flies. If we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitoes. If
7:40
we go afishing, we must expect a wet coat. Then climate is a
7:46
great impediment to idle persons. We often resolve to give up the care of
7:50
the weather, but we still regard the clouds and the rain. We are
7:56
instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and years. The hard soil
8:03
and fore months of snow make the inhabitant of the northern temperate zone, wiser
8:07
and abler than his fellow, who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics.
8:11
The islander may ramble all day at will. At night he may sleep on
8:16
a mat under the moon, and wherever a wild date tree grows, nature
8:20
has, without a prayer, even spread a table for his morning meal.
8:26
The northerner is perforce a householder. He must brew, bake, salt,
8:31
and preserve his food, and pile wood and coal. But as it happens
8:35
that not one stroke can labor lay to without some new acquaintance with nature.
8:39
And as nature is inexhaustibly significant, the inhabitants of these climates have always excelled
8:46
the southerner in force. Such is the value of these matters that a man
8:52
who knows other things can never know too much of these. Let him have
8:56
accurate perceptions. Let him, if he have hands, handle, if eyes
9:01
measure and discriminate. Let him accept and hive every fact of chemistry, natural
9:07
history, and economics. The more he has, the less he is willing
9:11
to spare. Anyone time is always bringing the occasions that disclose their value.
9:18
Some wisdom comes out of every natural and innocent action. The domestic man who
9:24
loves no music so well as his kitchen clock and the airs, which the
9:28
logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces which others
9:33
never dream of. The application of means to ends insures victory and the songs
9:39
of victory. Not less in a farm or a shop than in the tactics
9:43
of party or of war. The good husband finds method as efficient in the
9:48
packing of firewood in a shed, or in the harvesting of fruits in the
9:52
cellar, as in peninsular campaigns or the files of the Department of State.
9:58
In the rainy day, he builds a work bench or gets his toolbox set
10:01
in the corner of the barn chamber and stored with nails, giblet, pincers,
10:05
screwdriver, and chisel. Herein he tastes an old joy of youth and
10:11
childhood, the cat like love of garrets, presses, and corn chambers,
10:16
and of the conveniences of long housekeeping. His garden or his poultry guard tells
10:22
him many pleasant anecdotes. One might find argument for optimism in the abundant flow
10:28
of this saccarin element of pleasure in every suburb and extremity of the good world.
10:33
Let a man keep the law, any law, and his way will
10:37
be strown with satisfactions. There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures
10:43
than in the amount. On the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of
10:50
prudence. If you think the senses final, obey their law. If you
10:54
believe in the soul, do not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is right
11:00
up on the slow tree of cause and effect. It is vinegar to the
11:03
eyes to deal with men of loose and imperfect perception. Doctor Johnson is reported
11:09
to have said, if the child says he looked out of this window,
11:13
when he looked out of that, whip him. Our American character is marked
11:18
by a more than average delight in accurate perception, which is shown by the
11:22
currency of the byword no mistake. But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion
11:28
of thought about facts, of inattention to the wants of tomorrow is of no
11:33
nation. The beautiful laws of time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude,
11:41
are holes and dens. If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid
11:46
hands instead of honey, it will yield us bees. Our words and actions
11:52
to be fair must be timely. A gay and pleasant sound is the wetting
11:56
of the scythe in the mornings of June. Yet what is more lonesome and
12:01
sad than the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle when it is too late
12:05
in the season to make hay scatter brained and afternoon men spoil much more than
12:13
their own affair in spoiling the temper of those who deal with them. I
12:16
have seen acquitticism on some paintings, of which I am reminded when I see
12:22
the shiftless and unhappy men who are not true to their senses. The last
12:28
Grand Duke of Weimar, a man of superior understanding, said, I have
12:33
sometimes remarked, in the presence of great works of art, and just now,
12:37
especially in Dresden, how much a certain property contributes to the effect which
12:41
gives life to the figures, and to the life an irresistible truth. This
12:46
property is the hitting in all the figures we draw the right center of gravity.
12:52
I mean the placing the figures firm upon their feet, making their hands
12:56
grasp, and fastening the eyes on the spot where they should look. Even
13:01
lifeless figures as vessels and stools, let them be drawn ever so correctly,
13:07
lose all effect so soon as they lack the resting upon their center of gravity
13:13
and have a certain swimming and oscillating appearance. The Raphael in the Dresden Gallery,
13:18
the only greatly affecting picture which I have seen, is the quietest and
13:22
most passionless piece you can imagine a couple of saints who worship the Virgin and
13:28
child. Nevertheless, it awakens a deeper impression than the contortions of ten crucified
13:33
martyrs. For Beside all the resistless beauty of form, it possesses, in
13:39
the highest degree, the property of the perpendicularity of all the figures. This
13:46
perpendicularity we demand of all the figures in this picture of life. Let them
13:50
stand on their feet and not float and swing. Let us know where to
13:56
find them. Let them discriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed.
14:00
Call a spade a spade, Give us facts, and honor their own senses
14:05
with trust. But one man shall dare tax another with imprudence. Who is
14:11
prudence? The men we call greatest are least in this kingdom. There is
14:16
a certain fatal dislocation in our relation to nature, distorting our modes of living
14:22
and making every law our enemy, which seems at last to have aroused all
14:26
the wit and virtue in the world. To ponder the question of reform,
14:31
we must call the highest prudence to counsel and ask why health and beauty and
14:37
genius should now be the exception rather than the rule of human nature. We
14:41
do not know the properties of plants and animals, and the laws of nature
14:46
through our sympathy with the same. But this remains the dream of poets.
14:50
Poetry and prudence should be coincident. Poets should be law givers, that is
14:58
the boldest lyric Inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead
15:03
the civil code in the day's work. But now the two things seem irreconcilably
15:09
parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand amidst ruins, And
15:15
when, by chance we aspire a coincidence between reason and the phenomena, we
15:18
are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of every man and woman, as
15:24
invariably a sensation, but it is rare. Health and sound organization should be
15:31
universal. Genius should be the child of genius, and every child should be
15:35
inspired. But now it is not to be predicted of any child, and
15:41
nowhere is it pure. We call partial half lights by courtesy genius, talent
15:46
which converts itself to money, talent which glitters to day, that it may
15:50
dine and sleep well tomorrow. And society is officered by men of parts,
15:56
as they are properly called, and not by DevD men. These use their
16:02
gifts to refine luxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic,
16:07
and piety and love appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease, and
16:14
they find beauty in rights and bounds that resist it. We have found out
16:19
fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but no gifts can raise intemperance.
16:27
The man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of the senses
16:32
trivial, and to count them nothing considered with his devotion to his art.
16:37
His art never taught him lewdness, nor the love of wine, nor the
16:41
wish to reap before he had sowed. His art is less for every deduction
16:47
from his holiness, and less for every defect of common sense on him who
16:52
scored the world, as he said, the scorned world wreaks its revenge.
16:56
He that despiseth small things will perish by little and little Kurtus Tasso is very
17:03
likely to be a pretty fair historical portrait, And that is true tragedy.
17:10
It does not seem to me so genuine grief when some tyrannous Richard the Third
17:14
oppresses and slays a score of innocent persons, as when Antonio and Tasso both
17:19
apparently right wrong each other, one living after the maxims of this world and
17:26
consistent and true to them, the other fired with all divine sentiments, yet
17:30
grasping also at the pleasures of senses without submitting to their law. That is
17:37
a grief we all feel, and not we cannot Untie Tasso's is no infrequent
17:45
case in modern biography. A man of genius, of ardent temperaments, reckless
17:51
of physical laws, self indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate, querulous, a discomfortable
17:57
cousin, a thorn to himself and to others. The scholar shames us by
18:04
his by fulled life. Whilst something higher than prudence is active. He is
18:10
admirable when common sense is wanted. He is an encumbrance. Yesterday Caesar was
18:17
not so great to day. The felon at the gallows foot is not more
18:21
miserable yesterday, radiant with the light of the world in which he lives,
18:25
the first of men, and now oppressed by wants and by sickness for which
18:30
he must thank himself. He resembles the pitiful dwellers whom travelers describe as frequenting
18:37
the bazaars of Constantinople, whose skulk about old, yellow, emaciated, ragged
18:45
sneaking, and that evening, when the bazaars are open, slink to the
18:49
opium shop, swallow their morsel, and become tranquil and glorified sears. And
18:56
who has not seen the tragedy of imprudence genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary
19:03
difficulties, at last sinking, chilled, exhausted, and fruitless, like a
19:07
giant slaughtered by pins. Is it not better that a man should accept the
19:12
first pains and mortifications of this sort, which nature is not slacked, scenting
19:18
him as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of
19:22
his own labor and self denial. Health, bread, climate, social position
19:27
have their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem
19:32
nature a perpetual counselor and her perfections the exact measure of our deviations. Let
19:38
him make the night nights and the day day. Let him control the habit
19:44
of expense. Let him see that as much wisdom may be expended on a
19:48
private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may be drawn from
19:52
it. The laws of the world are written out for him on every piece
19:56
of money in his hand. There there is nothing he will not be the
20:00
better for knowing. Were it only the wisdom of poor Richard, or the
20:04
state street prudence of buying by the acre, to sell by the foot,
20:08
or the thrift of the agriculturist to stick a tree between whiles, because it
20:12
will grow whilst he sleeps, or the prudence which consists in husbanding little strokes
20:18
of the two little portions of time, particles of stock and small gains.
20:25
The eye of prudence will never shut. Iron. If kept at the iron,
20:29
margers will rust. Beer, if not brood in the right state of
20:33
the atmosphere, will sour. Timber of ships will rot at sea, or
20:37
if laid up high and dry, will strain, warp and dry rot.
20:41
Money, if kept by us, yields no rent, and is liable to
20:45
loss if invested, is liable to depreciation of the particular kind of stock.
20:51
Strike, says the smith. The iron is white, keep the rake,
20:56
says the haymaker, as nigh the side as you can, and the cart
20:59
is neither ake. Our Yankee trade is reputed to be very much on the
21:04
extreme of this prudence. It takes bank notes good, bad, clean,
21:10
ragged, and saves itself by the speed with which it passes them off.
21:15
Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, nor timber, rots, nor calicoes
21:19
go out of fashion, nor money stocks depreciate in the few swift moments in
21:25
which the yankee suffers any one of them to remain in his possession. In
21:29
skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed. Let him learn
21:34
a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn that everything in nature,
21:40
even moats and feathers, go by law, not by luck, and that
21:44
what he sows he reaps by diligence and self command. Let him put the
21:48
bread he eats at his own disposal, that he may not stand in bitter
21:52
and false relations to other men. For the best good of wealth is freedom.
21:59
Let him practice the minor virtues, how much of human life is lost
22:03
in waiting. Let him not make his fellow creature's wait. How many words
22:07
and promises are promises of conversation, Let his be words of fate. When
22:12
he sees a folded and sealed scrap of paper float round the globe in a
22:18
pine ship and come safe to the eye for which it was written amidst a
22:22
swarming population, Let him likewise feel the admonition to integrate his being across all
22:27
these distracting forces, and keep a slender human word among the storms, distances,
22:33
and accidents that drive us hither and thither, and by persistency, make
22:38
the paltry force of one man reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years
22:45
in the most distant climates. We must not try to write the laws of
22:49
any one virtue looking at that only human nature loves no contradictions, but is
22:56
symmetrical. The prudence which secures an outward well being is not to be studied
23:02
by one set of men, whilst heroism and holiness are studied by another,
23:07
but they are reconcilable. Prudence concerns the present time, persons, property,
23:12
and existing forms, but as every fact has its roots in the soul,
23:17
and if the soul were changed, would cease to be or would become some
23:22
other thing. The proper administration of outward things will always rest on a just
23:26
apprehension of their cause and origin. That is, the good man will be
23:33
the wise man, and the single hearted the politic man. Every violation of
23:37
truth is not only a sort of suicide in the lyar, but is a
23:41
stab at the health of human society. On the most profitable lie. The
23:48
course of events presently lays a destructive tax, while frankness invites. Frankness puts
23:53
the parties on a convenient footing, and makes their business a friendship. Trust
23:59
men, and they will be true to you. Treat them greatly. They
24:03
will show themselves great though they make an exception in your favor to all their
24:07
rules of trade. So in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does
24:15
not consist in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes
24:19
to walk in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself
24:25
up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst apprehension, and
24:30
his stoutness will commonly make his fear groundless. The Latin proverb says, in
24:36
battles, the eye is first overcome entire self. Possession may make a battle
24:41
very little more dangerous to life than a match at foils or at football.
24:47
Examples are sighted by soldiers of men who have seen the cannid pointed and the
24:51
fire given to it, and who have stepped aside from the path of the
24:55
ball. The terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the
25:00
cabin. The drover, the sailor buffets it all day, and his health
25:03
renews itself at as vigorous a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of
25:07
June. In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes readily to
25:15
heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party. But it is a bad
25:19
counselor. Every man is actually weak, and apparently strong to himself, he
25:26
seems weak to others formidable. You are afraid of grim, but Grim also
25:33
is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the good will of the meanest
25:37
person, uneasy at his ill will, but the sturdiest offender of your peace
25:41
and of the neighborhood. If you rip up his claims, is as thin
25:45
and timid as any, and the peace of society is often kept because,
25:51
as children say, one is afraid and the other dares not far off.
25:56
Men swell, bully and threaten, bring them hand to hand, and they
26:02
are a feeble folk. It is a proverb that courtesy costs nothing, but
26:08
calculation might come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be
26:15
blind, but kindness is necessary to perception. Love is not a hood but
26:19
an eye water. If you mean a sectary or a hostile partisan, never
26:25
recognize the dividing lines, but meet on what common ground remains. If only
26:30
that the sun shines and the rain rains, for both, the area will
26:34
widen very fast, and ere you know it, the boundary mountains on which
26:38
the eye had fastened have melted into air. If they set out to contend,
26:44
Saint Paul will lie, and Saint John will hate what low, poor,
26:49
paltry, hypocritical people and argument on religion will make of the pure and
26:55
chosen souls. They will shuffle and crow, crook and hide fain to confess
27:00
here only that they may brag and conquer there. And not a thought has
27:06
enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery modesty or hope. So
27:11
neither should you put yourself in a false position with your contemporaries by indulging a
27:17
vein of hostility and bitterness. Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs.
27:22
Assume an identity of sentiments, Assume that you are saying precisely that which
27:27
all think, and in the flow of wits and love, roll out your
27:32
paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt. So at
27:37
least shall you get an adequate deliverance. The natural motions of the soul are
27:42
so much better than the voluntary ones, that you will never do yourself justice
27:48
in dispute. The thought is not then taken hold of by the right handle,
27:52
does not show itself proportioned and in its true bearings, but bears extorted,
27:57
hoarse and half witness, but assumor consents, and it shall presently be
28:03
granted. Since really, and underneath their external diversities, all men are of
28:07
one heart and mind. Wisdom will never let us stand with any man or
28:14
men on an unfriendly footing. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as
28:19
if we waited for some better sympathy and intimacy to come. But whence and
28:25
when tomorrow will be like to day, life wastes itself whilst we are preparing
28:30
to live. Our friends and fellow workers die off from us. Scarcely can
28:37
we say we see new men new women approaching us. We are too old
28:41
to regard fashion, too all to expect patronage of any greater or more powerful.
28:47
Let us suck the sweetness of those affections and consuitudes that grow near us.
28:52
These old shoes are easy to the feet. Undoubtedly we can easily pick
28:57
faults in our company. We can ease they whispered names, prouder and that
29:02
tickle the fancy more. Every man's imagination hath its friends, and life would
29:07
be dearer with such companions. But if you cannot have them on good mutual
29:11
terms, you cannot have them. If not the deity but our ambition hues
29:17
and shapes the new relations, their virtue escapes as strawberries lose their flavor in
29:22
garden beds. Thus, truth, frankness, courage, love, humility,
29:29
and all the virtues range themselves on the side of prudence or the act of
29:33
securing a present well being. I do not know if all matter will be
29:38
found to be made of one element, as oxygen or hydrogen at last,
29:42
but the world of manners and actions is wrought of one's stuff, and begin
29:48
where we will. We are pretty sure in a short space to be mumbling
29:52
our ten commandments and of prudence,