The Power of Imagination of Certain Authors

General

One of the greatest and most remarkable proofs of the power that imaginations have over one another is the power that certain authors have to persuade without any reason. For example, the turn of phrase of Tertullian, of Seneca, of Montaigne, and of some others, has so many charms and so much brilliance that it dazzles the mind of most people, although it is only a weak painting and as it were the shadow of the imagination of these authors. Their words, as dead as they are, have more vigor than the reason of certain people. They enter, they penetrate, they dominate the soul in so imperious a manner that they make themselves obeyed without making themselves understood, and one yields to their orders without knowing them. One wishes to believe, but one does not know what to believe; for when one wishes to know what one wishes to believe, and one approaches, so to speak, these phantoms to recognize them, they often vanish in smoke with all their apparatus and all their brilliance.

Although the books of the authors I have just named are very suitable for making one notice the power that imaginations have over one another, and I propose them as examples, I do not however pretend to condemn them in all things. I cannot prevent myself from having esteem for certain beauties found in them, and deference for the universal approval they have had for several centuries [22]. I protest finally that I have much respect for some works of Tertullian, principally for his Apology against the Gentiles, and for his book of Prescriptions against heretics, and for some passages of the books of Seneca, although I do not have much esteem for the whole book of Montaigne.

Tertullian

Tertullian was truly a man of profound erudition, but he had more memory than judgment, more penetration and more extent of imagination than penetration and extent of mind. One cannot finally doubt that he was visionary in the sense I have explained before, and that he had almost all the qualities I have attributed to visionary minds. The respect he had for the visions of Montanus and his prophetesses is an incontestable proof of the weakness of his judgment. This fire, these outbursts, these enthusiasms on small subjects mark sensibly the disorder of his imagination. How many irregular movements in his hyperboles and figures! How many pompous and magnificent reasons, which prove only by their sensible brilliance, and which persuade only by stunning and dazzling the mind!

What purpose does it serve, for example, for this author, who wishes to justify himself for having taken the philosopher’s cloak instead of the ordinary robe, to say that this cloak had formerly been in use in the city of Carthage? Is it presently permitted to take the cap and the ruff, because our fathers used them? And can women wear farthingales and hoods, except at carnival, when they wish to disguise themselves to go in masquerade?

What can he conclude from these pompous and magnificent descriptions of the changes that occur in the world, and what can they contribute to his justification? The moon is different in its phases, the year in its seasons, the countryside changes face in winter and summer; there are floods of waters that drown entire provinces, and earthquakes that swallow them up; new cities have been built; new colonies have been established; there have been inundations of peoples that have ravaged entire countries; finally all nature is subject to change, therefore he was right to leave the robe to take the cloak! What relation is there between what he must prove, and all these changes and several others that he seeks with great care and describes with forced, obscure and strained expressions [23]? The peacock changes at every step it takes, the serpent entering some narrow hole comes out of its own skin and renews itself; therefore he is right to change his clothes! Can one with coolness and settled judgment draw such conclusions? And could one see them drawn without laughing, if this author did not stun and disturb the mind of those who read him?

Almost all the rest of this little book On the Cloak is full of reasons as far from his subject as these, which certainly prove only by stunning when one is capable of letting oneself be stunned; but it would be quite useless to dwell on it further. It suffices to say here that if correctness of mind, as well as clarity and neatness in discourse, must always appear in everything one writes, since one should write only to make known the truth, it is not possible to excuse this author, who, according to the report even of Saumaise, the greatest critic of our days, made all his efforts to render himself obscure, and who succeeded so well in his design, that this commentator was ready to swear that there was no one who understood him perfectly [24]. But even if the genius of the nation, the fancy of the fashion that reigned at that time, and finally the nature of satire or raillery, were capable of justifying in some manner this fine design of rendering himself obscure and incomprehensible, all that could not excuse the bad reasons and wandering of an author who, in several other of his works as well as in this one, says everything that comes into his mind, provided it be some extraordinary thought and that he have some bold expression by which he hopes to make a display of the strength, or rather to speak better, of the disorder of his imagination.