LEARNED MEN.

(Irritability of)

The history of the lives of learned men commonly shews that they have been engaged in troublesome quarrels, attended with jealousy, calumny, virulency, satire, factious spirit, fraud, and a thousand other shameful passions. It might be thought that of all men scholars are most apt to make themselves and others uneasy; which must needs create a contempt and hatred for learning, or at least make us lose the good opinion we might entertain of it. Ignorant people fancy, that if they had spent all their time in reading, they would have learned to moderate their passions, and to cure themselves of several faults, which incline them to behave themselves unjustly toward their neighbour; but they would have other thoughts, if they knew that the most learned men abuse and persecute one another, and complain of their sad destiny. Hence we may draw this conclusion, that there is nothing so difficult to be acquired as the tranquillity and uprightness of the mind. A continual study of good books seems to be a most proper means to acquire that treasure; and yet it seldom procures it, but very often produces a quite contrary effect. Horace had a very wrong notion, when he spoke these words: “It is enough for me to beg of God that he would preserve my life, and bestow riches upon me; and then I shall know how to procure to myself tranquillity of mind.

Quid sentire putas? quid cred is, amice, precari?
Sit mihi, quod nunc est, etiam minus: ut mihi vivam

Quod superest ævi, si quid superesse volunt di:
Sit bona librorum & provisæ frugis in annum
Copia: ne fluitem dubiæ spe pendulus horæ.
Sed satis est orare Jovem, qui donat, & aufert,
Det vitam, det opes: æquum mi animum ipse parabo.
Horat. Epist. xviii, lib. i, in fine.

He was grossly mistaken: the thing for which he thought he stood in no need of God’s assistance, was what he could least expect from his own ability, and the first he should have besought Jupiter to bestow upon him; for it is much more easy to get riches and honours by industry, than a quiet and contented mind. If it be said that riches and honours depend upon a thousand things which we cannot dispose of at pleasure, and that therefore it is necessary to pray to God that he would turn them to our advantage; I answer, that the silence of the passions, and the tranquillity of the mind depend upon a thousand things, which are not under our jurisdiction. The stomach, the spleen, the lymphatic vessels, the fibres of the brain, and a hundred other organs, whose seat and figure are yet unknown to the anatomists, produce in us many uneasinesses, jealousies, and vexations. Can we alter those organs? Are they in our power?— Art. Reinesius.