The desire to appear learned

The desire to appear learned

If the disordered desire to become learned often renders men more ignorant, the desire to appear learned not only renders them more ignorant, but it seems to overturn their minds; for there is an infinity of people who lose common sense because they wish to pass for having it, and who say only foolish things because they wish to say only paradoxes. They distance themselves so far from all common thoughts in the design they have of acquiring the quality of rare and extraordinary minds, that in effect they succeed, and they are regarded no longer either with admiration or with much contempt.

They are sometimes regarded with admiration, when being elevated to some dignity that covers them, one imagines that they are as much above others by their genius and erudition as they are by their rank or birth; but they are most often regarded with contempt, and sometimes even as madmen, when one regards them more closely and their grandeur does not hide them from the eyes of others.

False scholars manifestly show what they are in the books they compose and in their ordinary conversations. It is perhaps appropriate to say something about this.

The conversations of false scholars

Since it is vanity and the desire to appear more than others that engages them in study, as soon as they find themselves in conversation, the passion and desire for elevation awakens in them and carries them away. They mount all of a sudden so high that almost everyone loses sight of them, and they often do not themselves know where they are; they are so afraid of not being above all those who listen to them, that they even become angry when one follows them, they take fright when one asks them for some clarification, and they even assume an air of pride at the least opposition made to them. Finally, they say things so new and extraordinary, but so far from common sense, that the wisest have great difficulty in keeping from laughing, while others remain completely stunned.

When their first outburst has passed, if some mind strong and firm enough not to have been overturned by it shows them that they are mistaken, they nevertheless remain obstinately attached to their errors. The air of those they have stunned stuns them themselves; the sight of so many approvers whom they have convinced by impression, convinces them by rebound; or if this sight does not convince them, it at least inflates their courage enough to sustain their false sentiments. Vanity does not permit them to retract their word. They always seek some reason to defend themselves; they even never speak with more heat and eagerness than when they have nothing to say; they imagine that one insults them, and that one tries to render them contemptible at every reason brought against them; and the stronger and more judicious these reasons are, the more they irritate their aversion and pride.

The best way to defend truth against them is not to dispute, for finally it is better both for them and for us to leave them in their errors than to attract their aversion. We must not wound their heart when we wish to cure their mind, since the wounds of the heart are more dangerous than those of the mind; besides, it sometimes happens that one has to do with a man who is truly learned and one might despise him for lack of properly conceiving his thought. We must therefore beg those who speak in a decisive manner to explain themselves as distinctly as possible, without allowing them to change the subject or to use obscure and equivocal terms; and if they are enlightened persons, one will learn something with them; but if they are false scholars, they will confound themselves by their own words without going very far, and they will have only themselves to blame; one will perhaps receive some instruction and even some diversion from it, if it is permitted to divert oneself from the weakness of others while trying to remedy it; but what is more considerable is that one will thereby prevent the weak who listened to them with admiration from submitting to error by following their decisions.

For it must be well noted that the number of fools, or of those who allow themselves to be led mechanically and by sensible impression, being infinitely greater than that of those who have some openness of mind and who are persuaded only by reason, when one of these scholars speaks and decides something, there are always many more persons who believe him on his word than others who distrust him. But because these false scholars distance themselves as much as possible from common thoughts, both by the desire to find some opponent whom they mistreat in order to elevate themselves and to appear, and by a reversal of mind or by a spirit of contradiction; their decisions are ordinarily false or obscure, and it is rare enough that one listens to them without falling into some error.

Now, this manner of discovering the errors of others or the solidity of their sentiments is rather difficult to put into practice. The reason for this is that false scholars are not the only ones who wish to appear to know nothing; almost all men have this defect, principally those who have some reading and study, which makes them always wish to speak and explain their sentiments without bringing enough attention to understand well those of others. The most complaisant and most reasonable, despising in their hearts the sentiment of others, only show an attentive face, while one sees in their eyes that they are thinking of everything other than what is said to them, and that they are occupied only with what they wish to prove to us without thinking of answering us. This is what often makes conversations very disagreeable; for just as there is nothing sweeter and nothing that could do us more honor than to enter into our reasons and approve our opinions, there is also nothing so shocking as to see that they are not understood and that one does not even think of understanding them: for finally one does not take pleasure in speaking and conversing with statues, but who are statues to us only because they are men who do not have much esteem for us, and who do not think of pleasing us, but only of satisfying themselves by trying to make themselves valued. If men knew how to listen well and answer well, conversations would be not only very agreeable, but even very useful. Instead of that, each trying to appear learned, one only becomes stubborn and disputes without understanding one another; one sometimes wounds charity, and one almost never discovers truth.

But the errors into which false scholars fall in conversation are in some way excusable. One can say for them that ordinarily one brings little application to what one says at that time; that the most exact persons often say foolish things there, and that they do not pretend that one should collect all their words as has been done with those of Scaliger and Cardinal du Perron.

There is reason in these excuses, and one is willing to believe that these sorts of faults are worthy of some indulgence. One wishes to speak in conversation, but there are unhappy days in which one speaks badly. One is not always in the mood to think and speak well, and time is so short in certain encounters, that the smallest cloud and the slightest absence of mind unfortunately causes even the most just and penetrating minds to fall into extravagant absurdities.

But if the faults that false scholars commit in conversations are excusable, the faults into which they fall in their books, after having seriously thought about them, are not pardonable, principally if they are frequent, and if they are not repaired by some good things; for finally, when one has composed a bad book, one is the cause that a very great number of persons lose their time reading it, that they often fall into the same errors into which one has fallen, and that they deduce several others from them, which is no small evil.

But although it is a greater fault than one imagines to compose a bad book, or simply a useless book, it is a fault for which one is rather rewarded than punished; for there are crimes that men do not punish, either because they are in fashion, or because one does not ordinarily have a reason firm enough to condemn criminals whom one esteems more than oneself.

Authors are ordinarily regarded as rare and extraordinary men, and much elevated above others; they are therefore revered instead of being despised and punished.

Thus there is little likelihood that men will ever erect a tribunal to examine and condemn all the books that only corrupt reason.

This is why one must never hope that the republic of letters will be better regulated than other republics, since it is always men who compose it. It is even very appropriate, so that one may be able to deliver oneself from error, that there be more liberty in the republic of letters than in others where novelty is always very dangerous, for it would be to confirm us in the errors in which we are to wish to remove liberty from studious people, and to condemn without discernment all novelties.

One must therefore not find fault if I speak against the government of the republic of letters, and if I try to show that often these great men who make the admiration of others for their profound erudition are at bottom only vain and proud men, without judgment and without any true science. I am obliged to speak of them in this way so that one does not blindly submit to their decisions and does not follow their errors.

Their works

The proofs of their vanity, of their little judgment, and of their ignorance are manifestly drawn from their works, for if one takes the trouble to examine them with the design of judging them according to the lights of common sense, and without preoccupation of esteem for these authors, one will find that most of the designs of their studies are designs that a little judicious vanity has formed, and that their principal aim is not to perfect their reason and still less to well regulate the movements of their heart, but only to stun others and to appear more learned than them.

It is with this view that they treat, as we have already said, only rare and extraordinary subjects, and that they explain themselves only in rare and extraordinary terms, and that they cite only rare and extraordinary authors. They hardly explain themselves in their own language, it is too common; nor in a simple, clear, and easy Latin: it is not to make themselves understood that they speak, but to speak and to make themselves admired. They rarely apply themselves to subjects that can serve the conduct of life, that seems too common to them; what they seek is not to be useful to others nor to themselves, it is only to be esteemed learned: they bring no reasons for the things they advance, or they are mysterious and incomprehensible reasons that neither they nor anyone conceives with evidence; they have no clear reasons; but if they had them, they would not say them. These reasons do not surprise the mind, they seem too simple and too common, everyone is capable of them. They bring authorities rather to prove, or to pretend to prove, their thoughts, for often the authorities they use prove nothing by the sense they contain; they prove only because it is Greek or Arabic. But it is perhaps appropriate to speak of their citations, this will make known in some way the disposition of their mind.

It seems to me evident that only false erudition and the spirit of polymathy could have made citations fashionable as they have been up to now, and as they still are among some scholars; for it is not very difficult to find authors who cite at every moment great passages without any reason for citing, either because the things they advance are so clear that no one doubts them, or because they are so hidden that the authority of their authors cannot prove them, since they could not have known anything about them, or finally because the citations they bring can serve as no ornament to what they say.

It is contrary to common sense to bring a great Greek passage to prove that air is transparent, because that is a thing known to everyone; to use the authority of Aristotle to make us believe that there are intelligences that move the heavens, because it is evident that Aristotle could not have known anything about it; and finally to mix foreign languages, Arabic and Persian proverbs, in French or Latin books made for everyone, because these citations can serve there as no ornament, or they are bizarre ornaments that shock a very great number of persons and can satisfy only very few.

However, most of those who wish to appear learned take so much pleasure in these sorts of citations that they sometimes have no shame in citing them in languages they do not even understand, and they make great efforts to sew into their books an Arabic passage they sometimes cannot even read; thus they trouble themselves greatly to succeed in a thing contrary to good sense, but which satisfies their vanity and makes them esteemed by fools. They have another very considerable defect, which is that they care very little about appearing to have read with choice and discernment; they wish only to appear to have read much, and principally obscure books, so that they may be believed more learned; rare and expensive books, so that one may imagine that nothing is lacking to them; wicked and impious books that honest people dare not read, by much the same spirit as people boast of having committed crimes that others dare not commit. Thus they will cite expensive, rare, very ancient, and very obscure books rather than other more common and more intelligible books; books of astrology, cabala, and magic, rather than good books, as if they did not see that reading being the same thing as conversation, they should wish to appear to have carefully sought the reading of good books and of those that are most intelligible, and not the reading of those that are wicked and obscure.

For just as it is a reversal of mind to seek the ordinary conversation of people one cannot understand without an interpreter, when one can know in another way the things they teach us; so it is ridiculous to read only books one cannot understand without a dictionary, when one can learn these same things in those that are more intelligible to us; and as it is a mark of disorder to affect the company and conversation of the impious, it is also the character of a corrupted heart to take pleasure in the reading of wicked books. But it is extravagant pride to wish to appear to have read those one has not even read, which however happens often enough, for there are persons of thirty years who cite in their works more wicked books than they could have read in several centuries, and yet they wish to persuade others that they have read them very exactly; but most of the books of certain scholars are fabricated only by blows of dictionaries, and they have hardly read more than the tables of the books they cite, or some commonplaces gathered from different authors.

One would not dare to enter further into the detail of these things nor to give examples of them, for fear of shocking persons as proud and bilious as these false scholars are, for one does not take pleasure in being insulted in Greek and Arabic. Besides, it is not necessary to make what I say more sensible to give particular proofs of it, the human mind being inclined enough to find fault with the conduct of others and to apply what has just been said. Let them nevertheless feed themselves, since they wish it, on this vain phantom of greatness, and let them give each other the applause that we refuse them; it is perhaps already to have troubled them too much in a enjoyment that seems to them so sweet and so agreeable.