The original teller of this tale seems to have a strong grasp on the power of custom: a village woman, having learned to caress and carry a calf in her arms from the moment of its birth, and continually doing so, became habituated to the action, so that no matter how large the cow grew, she still carried it. For custom is truly a violent and treacherous schoolmistress. It establishes in us, little by little, surreptitiously, the power of its authority. But by this gentle and humble beginning, having strengthened and established it with the aid of time, it sometimes shows us a furious and tyrannical face, against which we no longer have the freedom to raise our eyes. We see it overcoming, at every turn, the rules of nature.
The most useful is the master of all things. (Pliny)
I believe in Plato’s Cave, and I believe the doctors, who so often owe the reasons for their art to that philosopher’s authority. Likewise a King who, through force of will, denied his stomach the power to feed on poison. And also the girl that Albert recites, who became accustomed to living on spiders. And in this world of the Americas, great peoples were found in very diverse climates, who lived on spiders, made provision for them, and fed on them, as well as on locusts, ants, lizards, and wasps, and a beetle was sold for six escudos in a time of need for food. They cook them and prepare them in various sauces. Others were found to which to European explorers were deadly and poisonous.
There is great force in custom. Hunters spend the night in the snow; they suffer themselves to be burned in the mountains. Boxers, bruised by blows, do not even groan. (Cicero)
These examples are foreign, but not strange; If we consider, as we usually try to, how much habituation dulls our senses. We need not look far to find other examples, such as what is said about the neighbors of the Nile cataracts, and what philosophers think of celestial music; That the bodies of these circles, being solid and coming to loosen and rub one another as they roll, cannot fail to produce a marvelous harmony, in the cuts and nuances of which the contours and changes of the carols of the stars are handled; but that, universally, the ears of creatures, asleep like those of the Egyptians by the continuation of this sound, cannot perceive it, however loud it may be. Marshal’s, millers, and armourers could not endure the noise that strikes them if they were astonished by it as we are. My floral collar serves my nose, but after I have worn it for three days in a row, it only serves the noses of those assisting me.
This is stranger still, that, notwithstanding long intervals and intermissions, becoming accustomed joins and establishes the effect of its impression on our senses: as the neighbors of the bell towers try. I live in a tower where at dawn and evening, a very large bell can be heard ringing the Ave Maria every day. This din frightens even my tower: and, in the early days, it was unbearable to me. But in a short time, I tamed it, so that I heard it without offense and often without waking up.
Plato scolded a child for carelessly playing with hazelnuts. The child replied: You tire me with little things. Habit, replied Plato, is not a little thing. I find that our greatest vices take their root in our earliest childhood, and that our primary education is in the hands of our nursemaids. It is a pastime for mothers to see a child wring the neck of a chicken and amuse themselves by hurting a dog or cat. Some fathers are foolish as to take it as a good omen of a martial spirit when they see their son insultingly goring a peasant or a lackey, who makes no defense, and even shows kindness when they turn to his companion with some malicious disloyalty and trickery. Yet these are the true seeds and roots of cruelty, tyranny and treachery. They germinate there and grow vigorously afterwards, and thrive in the hands of custom.
And it is a very dangerous institution to excuse these vile inclinations by the weakness of age and the levity of the subject. Firstly, it is nature speaking, whose voice is purer and stronger the more it is obscured. Secondly, the ugliness of whoredom does not depend on the difference between opportunity and denial. It depends on itself. I find it much more accurate to conclude as follows: Why would he not cheat if tempted, since he cheats when he has opportunity?
Children must be carefully taught to hate the vices of their own make-up, and they must be taught the natural deformity of these vices, so that they flee from them, not only in their actions, but above all in their hearts; that the very thought of them is hateful to them, whatever mask they wear. I know full well that, in order to have the temerity in my youth to always follow my own path, and having reluctantly mixed neither knitting nor finesse into my childish games, as indeed it should be noted that children’s games are not games, and should be judged in them as their most serious actions, it is not a light pastime where I bring from within, from a natural propensity, and without study, an extreme contradiction to deceive.
I handle the cards in a game and take them into account. As for playing with family, winning and losing against my wife and my daughter is of no consequence to me. In fact, defeat is in a good cause. All in all, there are enough of my eyes to keep me in office: there are none that watch over me so closely, nor that I respect more. I have welcomed into my house a little man from Nantes, born without arms, who has so well shaped his feet to the service that his hands should provide, that they have in truth half-forgotten their natural office. For the rest, he calls them his hands, he draws, he loads a pistol and releases it, he sews, he writes, he pulls on his cap, he combs his hair, he plays cards and dice, and moves them with as much dexterity as anyone else could. The money I gave him (for he earns his living showing off), he carried it on his foot, as we carry it in our hand.
I saw another one, as a child, who wielded a two-handed sword and a halberd, from the crook of his neck, for lack of hands, threw them in the air and caught them again, threw a dagger. But we discover its effects much better in the strange impressions it makes in our souls, where it does not encounter so much resistance. What cannot it do in our judgments and beliefs? Is there any opinion so bizarre (I leave aside the gross imposture of religions, with which so many great nations and so many self-important figures have wanted to poison themselves: for this part being beyond our human reason, it is more excusable to lose oneself in it, for those who are not extraordinarily enlightened by divine favor) but are there other opinions so strange that she has not planted and established by law in those regions as she saw fit? And is this ancient exclamation very just:
A physicist, that is, a specter and hunter of nature, is not ashamed to seek testimony to the truth from minds imbued with habit. (Cicero)
I believe that no fantasy so wild can occur to the human imagination that does not find an example in some public custom, and therefore that our discourse is not baseless and unfounded. There are peoples where one turns one’s head towards the person being greeted, and one never looks at the person one wants to honor. There are some where, when the King spits, the most favored lady of his Court holds out her hand; and in another nation the most prominent people around him bend down to the ground to collect his filth in a cloth. Let us take away the place of a count here. A French gentleman always wiped his hand: something very unlike our custom. Defending his actions on this point (and he was famous in good company) he asked me what privilege this excrement had that we were going to him, preparing a beautiful, delicate cloth to receive it, and then, what’s more, to wrap it up and carefully press it on us; that this should be more horrible and sickening than seeing it poured out wherever it was, as we do all other excrements.
I found that he was not speaking at all without reason: and I had the habit of perceiving this strangeness, which we nevertheless find so hideous, when it is recited from another country. Miracles are according to the ignorance in which we are of nature, not according to the being of nature. Habituation dulls the eyes of our judgment. The barbarians are no more wonderful to us than we are to them, nor with more reason: as everyone would admit, if everyone knew, after having perused these new examples, how to apply them sensibly and impart them wisely. Human reason is a dye infused in about the same proportion to all our opinions and morals, whatever form they may take: infinite in matter, infinite in diversity. I shall return. There are peoples where, except for his wife and children, no one speaks to the King except through intermediaries. In one and the same nation, virgins display their private parts uncovered, while brides carefully cover and hide them; to which custom, which exists elsewhere, bears some relation: chastity is only taken into account for the service of marriage, for girls can abandon themselves to their position, and, once they have grown fat, have abortions with their own medicines, in full view of everyone.
And elsewhere, if it is a merchant who is getting married, all the merchants invited to the wedding sleep with the bride before him; and the more there are, the more honor and recommendation she has of firmness and capacity; if an officer gets married, the same goes for me; the same if it is a nobleman, and so on, except if he is a laborer or someone from the lower classes: for then it is up to the Lord; and if, one does not cease to strictly recommend loyalty there, during the marriage.
There are some where there are brothels of men and even marriages between them; where the women go to war when and their husbands, and have rank, not only in combat, but also in command. Where not only rings are worn on the nose, lips, cheeks and toes, but also heavy golden rods through the nipples and buttocks. Where, when eating, one wipes one’s fingers on the thighs and the scrotum and the soles of the feet. Where children are not heirs, but brothers and nephews; and elsewhere nephews only, except in the succession of the Prince.
Where, to regulate the community of goods, which is observed there, certain sovereign Magistrates have universal charge of the cultivation of the land and the distribution of the fruits, according to the needs of each one. Where they mourn the death of children and celebrate the death of old men. Where they sleep in ten or twelve beds together with their wives. Where women who lose their husbands through violent death can remarry, but others cannot. Where the status of women is so lowly that females born there are killed, and neighbors of the women are bought for the purpose. Where husbands can repudiate their wives without giving any reason, but wives cannot for any reason. Where husbands have the right to sell them if they are barren.
Where they cook the body of the deceased, and then pound it until it forms a kind of porridge which they mix with their wine and drink. Where the most desirable burial is to be eaten by dogs, elsewhere by birds. Where it is believed that happy souls live in complete freedom, in pleasant fields, provided with every convenience; and that they are the ones who make the echo that we hear. Where they fight in the water, and shoot safely from their bows while swimming. Where, as a sign of subjection, one must shrug one’s shoulders and bow one’s head, and take off one’s shoes when one enters the King’s house. Where the eunuchs, who have nuns as guardians, still have their noses and lips to speak with, so as not to be able to be loved; and the priests gouge out their eyes to ward off their demons, and take the oracles. Where each person makes a god of whatever pleases them, the hunter of a lion or a fox, the fisherman of a certain fish, and idols of every human action or passion: the sun, the moon, and the earth are the main gods; the form of swearing is to touch the ground, looking at the sun; and there one eats meat and raw fish.
Where the great oath is to swear the name of some deceased man who had a good reputation in the country, touching his tomb with the hand. Where the annual tributes that the King sends to his vassal princes is fire. The ambassador who brings it, upon arrival, extinguishes the old fire throughout the entire house. And from this new fire, the people dependent on this prince must each come and take some for themselves, on pain of the crime of lèse majesté. Where, when the King, in order to devote himself entirely to devotion (as they often do), retires from his office, his first successor is obliged to do the same, and passes the right of the Kingdom to the third successor. Where the form of government is diversified, as business requires: the King is deposed when it seems good, and the elders are substituted to take the government of the state and sometimes it is also left in the hands of the commune. Where men and women are circumcised and baptized alike.
Where a soldier who, in one or more battles, has managed to present his king with seven enemy heads is made a nobleman. Where people live under this rare and uncivilized notion of the mortality of the soul. Where women give birth without complaint and without fear. Where women wear copper girdles on one or both legs; and, if a hair bites them, are bound by duty of magnanimity to bite it again; and dare not marry, until they have offered their virginity to their King, if he wants it. Where they greet each other by placing their finger on the ground and then raising it to the sky. Where the men carry loads on their heads and the women on their shoulders: they piss standing up, the men crouched down. Where they send blood as a sign of friendship and praise the men they want to honor as if they were gods. Where not only up to the fourth degree, but no further, kinship is not tolerated in marriages.
Where children are breastfed for four years, and often twelve: and even then, it is considered deadly to give the child to suck on the very first day. Where fathers are responsible for punishing boys and mothers are responsible for punishing girls, and the punishment for them is to be hung up by their feet and smoked. Where women are circumcised. Where they eat all kinds of herbs, with no other discretion than to reject those that they think have a bad smell. Where everything is open, and the houses for the beautiful and rich as they are, without doors, without windows, without a safe that closes; and thieves are punished twice as much as elsewhere. Where they pull out hairs with their teeth like the Magots, and find it horrible to see them under the nails.
Where in their whole life they cut neither hair nor nail; elsewhere where they cut only the nails of the right hand, those of the left hand are nourished out of kindness. Where they feed all the hair on the body on the right side, as long as it can grow, and keep the hair on the other side short. And in neighboring provinces this one nourishes the hair in front, that one the hair in back, and shaves the opposite. Where fathers lend their children, husbands their wives, to enjoy to the hosts, by paying. Where one can honestly make children to one’s mother, fathers meddle with their daughters, and with their sons. Where at the assemblies of the feasts, they lend each other’s children to each other.
Here they live on human flesh; there it is an act of piety to kill one’s father at a certain age; elsewhere fathers ordain, from children still in their mothers’ wombs, those they want to be fed and kept, and those they want to be abandoned and killed; elsewhere old husbands lend their wives to the young to use them; and elsewhere they are common without sin: Indeed, in some countries they wear as many beautiful tufts fringed at the edge of their dresses as a sign of honor, which they have had male children with. Has not custom made something else public about women? Has it not put weapons in their hands? Made them raise armies and fight battles? And what all philosophy cannot plant in the head of the wisest, does it not teach by its sole decree to the most coarse and vulgar?
For we know of entire nations where not only was death scorned, but celebrated; where children of seven years old suffered themselves to be beaten to death without changing countenance; where wealth was in such contempt, that the meanest citizen of the city would not stoop to raise a purse of coins. And we know of regions very fertile in all kinds of food, where nevertheless the most ordinary and the most savory dishes were bread, water and cheese. Did she not perform this miracle in Cio, where seven hundred years passed without a memory of a woman or a girl having done wrong to her honor?
In short, to my imagination, there is nothing she does not do, or cannot do: and rightly is called by Pindarus, as I have been told, the Queen and Empress of the world. The man whom we met beating his father replied that it was the custom of his house: that his father had beaten his grandfather in the same way; his grandfather, his great-grandfather; and, pointing to his son, he added: And this one will beat me when he has reached my age. And the father, whom the son was dragging along and abusing in the street, ordered him to stop at a certain house; for he had only dragged his father as far as there; that was the limit of the hereditary abusive treatment that children had the custom of inflicting on their fathers in their family.
By custom, says Aristotle, as often as by illness, women pull out their hair, bite their nails, eat coals and dirt; and by custom as much as by nature males mate with males. The laws of conscience, which we say arise from nature, arise from custom: each person having an internal veneration for the opinions and morals approved and accepted around him, he cannot detach himself from them without remorse, nor apply himself to them without applause. When the Cretans wanted to curse someone in the past, they asked the gods to involve them in some bad custom. But the main effect of its power is to seize and dominate us in such a way that we can hardly rid ourselves of its hold and return to ourselves, to discuss and reason about its ordinances.
Truly, because we inhale them with the milk of our birth, and the face of the world presents itself in this state at our first sight, we are born to follow this course. And the common imaginations, which we find in credit around us, and infused into our soul by the seed of our fathers, seem to be the general and natural ones. Whereby it happens that what is outside the hinges of custom is believed to be outside the hinges of reason: God knows how unreasonably, more often than not. If, like us, who are studying, we have learned to do so, everyone who hears a true sentence would immediately look at where it belongs in his own, and everyone would find that this is not so much a good saying as a good lashing of the ordinary stupidity of his judgment.
But the advice of truth and its precepts are received as addressed to the people, never to oneself; and, instead of imprinting them on one’s morals, each one imprints them on his memory, very foolishly and very uselessly. Let us return to the rule of custom. Peoples brought up to be free and to govern themselves consider any other form of government monstrous and unnatural. Those who are drawn to the monarchy feel the same way. And however easy fortune makes it for them to change, even when they have, with great difficulty, got rid of the importunity of a master, they run to replant a new one with similar difficulty, unable to bring themselves to hate mastery.
Darius asked some Greeks how much they would want to take up the custom of the Indies, of eating their deceased fathers (for it was their custom, believing they could not give them a more favorable burial than in themselves), they replied that for anything in the world they would not do it; but, having also tried to persuade the Indians to abandon their way and adopt that of Greece, which was to burn the bodies of their fathers, he made them even more horrified. Everyone does this, especially since custom hides the true face of things from us,
Nothing is so great, nor so wonderful in the beginning, that all do not gradually diminish in wonder. (Lucretius)
Once I was assigned to help confirm the importance of one of our observances and help promote its following by others. I looked for its origin, not wanting to establish it only by the force of laws and examples, I found the basis so weak that that I almost lost my appetite for it myself. This is similar to how Plato wished to banish the “unnatural” same sex loves of his time. He suggested that public opinion condemn them, that poets and writers tell ill fortuned tales of them. This method has been used to turn the public against acts of incest. The very fables of Thyestes, Oedipus, and Macareus, with the pleasure of their song, instilled this useful belief into the tender brains of children.
Truly, chastity is a beautiful virtue, and its usefulness is well known: but to treat it and assert it according to nature is as difficult as it is easy to assert it according to custom, laws and precepts. The first and universal reasons are difficult to fathom. And our masters skim over them, or, not daring to even just touch them, throw themselves headlong into the frankness of custom, where they swell and triumph for nothing. Those who do not want to be drawn out of this original source go even further and force themselves into wild opinions, like Chrysippus, who sowed in so many places from his writings the little account in which he held incestuous conjunctions, whatever they were. Whoever wants to get rid of this violent prejudice of custom will find many things accepted as an unquestionable resolution, which have only been supported by the gray and wrinkled beard of the usage that accompanies them. But, with this mask torn off, bringing things back to truth and reason, he will feel his judgment as if it were completely turned upside down, and yet put back in a much more secure state.
For example, I will ask him at that time what can be stranger than to see a people obliged to follow laws they never heard, bound in all their domestic affairs, marriages, donations, wills, sales and purchases, to rules they cannot know, being neither written nor published in their language, and from which they must necessarily buy the interpretation and use? Not according to the ingenious opinion of Isocrates, who advises his King to make the trades and negotiations of his subjects free, open and lucrative, and their debates and quarrels onerous, burdening them with cash subsidies; but according to a monstrous opinion, to make trade of reason itself, and to give laws the course of merchandise.
I am grateful to fortune, for, as our historians say, it was a gentleman from Gascony and my country who first opposed Charlemagne, wanting to give us the Latin and Imperial laws. What is more savage than to see a nation where, by legitimate custom, the office of judging is sold, and judgments are paid for in pure hard cash, and where justice is legitimately denied to those who cannot afford to pay for it. This leads to a commodity so highly prized that a fourth estate is formed into a police force, which professionals handling lawsuits, to join it to the three old ones, of the Church, of the Nobility and of the People. This new estate, having the charge of the laws and sovereign authority of goods and lives, forms a body separate from that of the nobility: wherefore there are double laws, those of honor and those of justice, in many ways very contrary (so rigorously do the former condemn an injury suffered, as the latter a revenge taken); by the duty of arms, he who suffers an injury is degraded in honor and nobility, and, by civil duty, he who takes revenge incurs a capital punishment (he who appeals to the law to have an offense against his honor redressed dishonors himself; and he who does not appeal to the law is punished and chastised by the law.) These two such diverse pieces relate, however, to a single principle and create endless dualities: let those have peace, let these have war in charge; let those have gain, let these have honor; let those have knowledge, let these have virtue; let those have speech, let these have action; let those have justice, let these have valor; let those have reason, let these have strength; let those have the long robe, let these have the short.
As for indifferent things, such as clothing, who will want to bring them back to their true purpose, which is the service and comfort of the body, on which depends their original grace and good appearance, for the most monstrous that I can imagine, I will give him, among other things, our square bonnets, this long, pleated velvet tail that hangs from our women’s heads with its colorful trappings, and this vain and useless model of a member that we cannot honestly name, yet which we display and parade in public. These considerations do not, however, dissuade a man of understanding from following the common style. On the contrary, it seems to me that all deviant and particular ways are more likely to stem from folly or ambitious affectation than from true reason; and that the wise man must withdraw his soul from the press within, and keep it free and able to judge things freely. As for the outside, he must follow the accepted ways and forms entirely.
Public society has no business with our thoughts; but the rest, like our actions, our work, our fortunes and our own lives, must be lent and abandoned to its service and to common opinions, as that good and great Socrates refused to save his life by disobeying the magistrate, even a very unjust and wicked magistrate. For it is the rule of rules, and general law of laws, that everyone observes those of the place where he is: —
It is a fine thing to obey your country’s laws. (Crispin)
Here is another vintage. There is great doubt as to whether there can be such an obvious benefit to changing an established law, such that there is harm in stirring it up: especially since a policy is like a building made up of various pieces joined together, in such a way that it is impossible to shake one without the whole body feeling it. The lawgiver of the Thracians decreed that anyone who wished to abolish one of the old laws or to establish a new one would present himself to the people with a rope around his neck: so that if the new law was not approved by everyone, he would be immediately strangled. And the one from Lacedemone used his life to extract an assured promise from his citizens, not to violate any of his ordinances. The ephor who cut so rudely the two strings that Phrinys had added to the music does not care if it is better, or if the chords are better filled: it is enough for him to condemn them, that it is an alteration of the old way. That is what that rusty sword of the justice of Marseille meant.
I am disgusted with novelty, whatever face it wears, and rightly so, for I have seen it have very harmful effects. The one that has been pressing us for so many years has not exploited everything, but it can be said with apparent accuracy that by accident it has produced and generated everything: even the evils and ruins that have been created since without it, and against it: it is up to it to take it on the nose,
Alas, I suffer the wounds inflicted on me by weapons. (Ovid)
Those who set a state in motion are often the first to be absorbed in its ruin. The fruit of the trouble hardly remains with the one who stirred it up. It stirs up and muddies the waters for other fishermen. The connection and context of this monarchy and this great edifice having been dismantled and dissolved, especially in its old age, by it, provides as many openings and points of entry as one could wish for such insults. Royal majesty, as an ancient once said, is more difficult to swallow from the top to the middle than it is to rush from the middle to the bottom. But if inventors are more harmful, imitators are more vicious. They throw themselves into examples, from which they have felt and suffered horror and evil. And if there is any degree of honor, even in doing evil, these owe to others the glory of invention, and the courage of the first effort.
All kinds of new debauchery happily draw from this first and fruitful source the images and models to disturb our police. In our very laws, made to remedy this original evil, we find the justification and excuse for all sorts of evil enterprises; and we see happening to us what Thucydides said of the civil wars of his time, that in favor of public vices they were clothed in new, softer words, to excuse them, bastardizing and softening their true titles. It is, however, to reform our consciences and our beliefs.
It is an honest speech. (Terence)
But the best pretext of novelty is very dangerous:
Therefore, no movement from ancient times is probable.(Livy)
It seems to me, to be frank, that there is great self-love and presumption, to value one’s opinions so highly that, in order to establish them, it is necessary to overturn public peace, and introduce so many inevitable evils and such a horrible corruption of morals as civil wars bring. This brings about changes of state into trifling matters; which are then introduced into his own country. Is it not a bad move to advance so many certain and known vices, to combat disputed and debatable errors? Are there any worse kinds of vices than those that shock one’s own conscience and natural knowledge? The Senate dared to offer this defeat, in payment for the dispute between it and the people, for the ministry of their religion:
It pertains more to the gods than to themselves, that they themselves will see that their sacred things are not polluted. (Livy)
in accordance with the oracle’s response to those of Delphi in the Medes War. Fearing the invasion of the Persians, they asked the God what they should do with the sacred treasures of his temple, whether to hide them or take them away. He replied that they should not move anything; that they should take care of them; that it was enough for him to provide for what was his.
The Christian faith has all the hallmarks of extreme justice and usefulness, but none more apparent than the exact recommendation of obedience to the law and maintenance of the police. What a wonderful example has been left to us by divine wisdom, which, in order to establish the salvation of the human race and to conduct its glorious victory over death and sin, has chosen to do so only at the mercy of our political order. It has subjected its progress, and the conduct of such a high and such a salutary effect, to the blindness and injustice of our observations and customs: letting the innocent blood of so many of his favorites flow, and suffering a long loss of years to die this inestimable fruit. There is much to be said between the cause of he who follows the forms and laws of his country, and he who undertakes to regulate and change them. The latter pleads simplicity, obedience and example as his excuse: whatever he does, it cannot be malice, it is, at most, misfortune.
For who is there who is not moved by antiquity, attested and recorded in the most illustrious monuments?(Cicero)
This contradicts what Isocrates says, that defectiveness has more to do with moderation than excess. He is in a much rougher position.
He who meddles with choosing and changing usurps the authority to judge and must make himself strong to see the fault of what he casts out and the good of what he introduces. This very commonplace consideration has given me pause, and has since my more reckless youth: Do not burden my shoulders with such a heavy intellectual load that I become personally responsible for judgments beyond my grasp or for which I could do great harm with a rash decision. It seems to me very unjust to want to subject the public and immutable constitutions and observances to the instability of a private fantasy (private reason has only a private jurisdiction) and to undertake on divine laws what no police would tolerate on civil laws.
If sometimes divine Providence has gone beyond the rules to which it has necessarily bound us, it is not to exempt us from them. These are blows from its divine hand, which we must not imitate, but admire. These are extraordinary examples, to be marked with an explicit and particular recognition, and a kind of miracle she offers us, a testimony to her omnipotence above our orders and strengths. It is folly and impiety to try to represent, and which we must not follow, but contemplate with astonishment. Acts of his character, not ours. Cotta protests very opportunely:
When it comes to religion, I follow Titus Coruncanius, Publius Scipio, Publius Scaevola, the supreme pontiffs, not Zeno or Cleanthes or Chrysippus. (Cicero)
God knows, in our present quarrel, there are a hundred articles to be taken up and put down, great and profound articles, how many of these writers read enough to recognize the reasons and foundations of both parties? It is not a significant number. And where is all this other press going? Under whose banner does it rally? It suffers the same fate as weak and poorly applied medicines. The moods it wanted to purge from us have been exacerbated, exasperated and embittered by the conflict, and have festered in the body. She was unable to purge us through her weakness, and yet she weakened us, so that we cannot get rid of her either, and we only receive long and internal pains from her operation.
Fortune sometimes presents us with an urgent necessity for the laws to make some room for her. Resisting the growth of a violently introduced innovation is dangerous and to keep everything in check, within the law, against those who find all tactics permissible is a dangerous inequality:
Faith provides a treacherous way to harm.(Seneca)
All the more so, as the ordinary discipline of a healthy State does not provide for these extraordinary accidents. It presupposes a body politic that is in good health, and a common consent to its observation and obedience. The legitimate gait is cold, stilted and constrained, not licentious and unbridled. We know that these two great figures, Octavius and Cato, are still criticized for the civil wars, one of Sulla’s and the other of Caesar’s, for having rather let their country run to extremes than to help it at the expense of its laws and to stir nothing.
For, in truth, in these last desperate moments where there is nothing left to do but hold on, it would be wiser to lower one’s head and compromise a little than, struggling beyond the possibility of letting anything go, opening an opportunity for violence to trample everything underfoot. It would be better to make the laws do what they can, since they cannot do what they want. Thus did he who ordered that they sleep for twenty-four hours, and he who for once moved a day on the calendar, and he who made the month of June the second of May.
The Lacedaemonians themselves, so religiously observant of the ordinances of their country, by law forbade the same person from being elected admiral twice. On the other hand, when their affairs compelled that Lysander take up this office again, they made Aracus admiral, with Lysander superintendent of the navy. And with the same subtlety of states craft, when one of their ambassadors was sent to the Athenians to gain approval of an updated ordinance, with Pericles arguing that it was forbidden to remove the tablet on which a law was once inscribed, advised him to turn it over, since that was not forbidden. This is what Plutarch praises Philopáemon for: that, being born to command, he knew how to command not only according to the laws, but also to command the laws themselves, when public necessity required it.