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07 - Prudence - Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson · Logic Library

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