Friendship Toward Others

The third natural inclination: Friendship

To properly understand the cause and effects of this natural inclination, we must know that

God:

• loves all His works
• unites them closely with one another for their mutual preservation

It is His love that produces His works.

He also unceasingly imprints in our hearts a love for His works, since He unceasingly produces in our hearts a love similar to His own.

So that the natural love we have for ourselves might not annihilate or weaken too greatly that which we have for things outside us, and that on the contrary these two loves that God places in us might sustain and strengthen each other, He has bound us in such a way to everything that surrounds us, and principally to beings of our own kind, that their misfortunes afflict us naturally, that their joy rejoices us, and that their greatness, their abasement, their diminution, seems to increase or diminish our own being.

The new dignities of our relatives and friends, the new acquisitions of those most closely related to us, the conquests and victories of our prince, and even the new discoveries of the New World, seem to add something to our substance. Holding to all these things, we rejoice in their greatness and extent; we would even wish that this world had no bounds;

Certain philosophers think that the stars and vortices are infinite.

This idea seems worthy of God and is very agreeable to man who feels a secret joy in being part of the infinite; because, however small he is in himself, it seems to him that he becomes as if infinite by spreading himself into the infinite beings that surround him.

It is true that the union we have with all the bodies that roll in these vast spaces is not very close. Thus, it is not perceptible to most men, and there are some who take so little interest in the discoveries made in the heavens that one might well believe they are not united to them by nature, if one did not know otherwise that this is either for lack of knowledge, or because they cling too much to other things.

The soul, although united to the body it animates, does not always feel all the movements that occur within it; or, if it feels them, it does not always attend to them: the passion that agitates it being often greater than the sensation that touches it, it seems to cling more to the object of its passion than to its own body; for it is principally through the passions that the soul spreads outward and feels that it effectively holds to everything that surrounds it; just as it is principally through sensation that it spreads into its body and recognizes that it is united to all the parts that compose it. But just as one cannot conclude that the soul of a passionate man is not united to his body because he exposes himself to death and takes no interest in preserving his life, so too one should not imagine that we do not hold naturally to all things, because there are some in which we take no part.

Do you wish, for example, to know whether men are attached to their prince, to their country? Seek out those who understand its interests and who have no private affairs occupying them: you will then see how great will be their eagerness for news, their anxiety over battles, their joy in victories, their sadness in defeats. You will then clearly see that men are closely united to their prince and their country.

Likewise, do you wish to know whether men are attached to China and Japan, to the planets and fixed stars? Seek out, or imagine, some whose country and family enjoy profound peace, who have no particular passions, and who do not actively feel the union that attaches them to things closer to us than the heavens; and you will recognize that if they have some knowledge of the grandeur and nature of these stars, they will rejoice if some are discovered; they will contemplate them with pleasure; and if they are sufficiently skilled, they will willingly take the trouble to observe and calculate their movements.

Those who are in the turmoil of affairs are little concerned whether a comet appears or an eclipse occurs; but those who do not cling so strongly to things near them make a considerable matter of such events, because in effect there is nothing to which one does not cling, although one does not always feel it; just as one does not always feel that one’s soul is united, I do not say to one’s arm and hand, but to one’s heart and brain.

The strongest natural union that God has placed between us and His works is that which binds us to the men with whom we live. God has commanded us to love them as ourselves; and so that the love of choice by which we love them might be firm and constant, He sustains and strengthens it unceasingly by a natural love He imprints in us. For this purpose He has placed certain invisible bonds that oblige us as if necessarily to love them, to watch over their preservation as over our own, to regard them as necessary parts of the whole we compose with them, and without which we could not subsist.

There is nothing more admirable than these natural relationships found between the inclinations of men’s minds, between the movements of their bodies, and between these inclinations and these movements. All this secret interlinking is a marvel one cannot admire enough and could never fully comprehend. At the sight of some misfortune that surprises one or that one feels is insurmountable by one’s own strength, one lets out, for example, a great cry. This cry, often uttered without thinking and by the disposition of the machine, enters infallibly into the ears of those who are close enough to give the help one needs. This cry penetrates them and makes itself heard to them, of whatever nation and condition they may be; for this cry is of all languages and all conditions, as indeed it ought to be. It agitates the brain and changes in a moment the entire disposition of the body of those who are struck by it; it even makes them run to help without thinking. But it is not long before it acts upon their mind and obliges them to will to help and to think of means to help the one who has made this natural prayer, provided, however, that this prayer or rather this pressing command is just and according to the rules of society. For an indiscreet cry, uttered without cause or from vain fear, produces in those present indignation or mockery instead of compassion, because by crying out without reason one abuses the things established by nature for our preservation. This indiscreet cry naturally produces aversion and the desire to avenge the wrong done to nature—that is, to the order of things—if the one who made it without cause did so voluntarily. But it should produce only the passion of mockery mixed with some compassion, without aversion and without a desire for vengeance, if it was fright—that is, a false appearance of pressing need—that caused someone to cry out; for mockery is needed to reassure him as fearful and to correct him, and compassion is needed to help him as weak: one could conceive of nothing better ordered.

I do not pretend to explain by one example what are the springs and relationships that the author of nature has placed in the brain of men and of all animals to maintain the harmony and union necessary for their preservation. I only make some reflections on these springs, so that one might think about them and carefully investigate—not how these springs work, nor how their action is communicated through air, light, and all the small bodies surrounding us, for that is almost incomprehensible and not necessary—but at least so that one might recognize what their effects are. One can recognize by various observations the bonds that attach us to one another, but one cannot know with any exactitude how this is done. One easily sees that a watch marks the hours; but it takes time to know the reasons for it; and there are so many different springs in the brain of the smallest animal that nothing compares to it in the most complex machines.

If it is not possible to perfectly understand the springs of our machine, it is also not absolutely necessary to understand them; but it is absolutely necessary for conducting oneself to know well the effects these springs are capable of producing in us. It is not necessary to know how a watch is made to use it; but if one wishes to use it to regulate one’s time, it is at least necessary to know that it marks the hours. However, there are people so incapable of reflection that one might almost compare them to purely inanimate machines. They do not feel in themselves the springs that are released at the sight of objects; often they are agitated without perceiving their own movements; they are slaves without feeling their bonds; they are finally led in a thousand different ways without recognizing the hand of the one who governs them. They think they are the sole authors of all the movements that happen to them; and, not distinguishing what passes in them as a consequence of a free act of their will from what is produced there by the impression of surrounding bodies, they think they conduct themselves when in fact they are conducted by something else. But this is not the place to explain these things.

The relationships that the author of nature has placed between our natural inclinations in order to unite us with one another seem even more worthy of our attention and investigation than those between bodies or between minds in relation to bodies. For everything is so ordered that the inclinations which seem most opposed to society are the most useful to it when they are somewhat moderated.

The desire, for example, that all men have for greatness tends by itself to the dissolution of all societies. Nevertheless, this desire is tempered in such a way by the order of nature that it serves the good of the state more than many other weak and languishing inclinations. For it gives emulation, it excites to virtue, it sustains courage in the service rendered to one’s country. And one would not win so many victories if soldiers and principally officers did not aspire to glory and offices. Thus those who compose armies, though working only for their particular interests, nevertheless procure the good of the whole country. This shows that it is very advantageous for the public good that all men have a secret desire for greatness, provided it be moderated.

But if all individuals appeared to be what they are in effect, if they said frankly to others that they wish to be the principal parts of the body they compose, and never the least, that would not be the means to join together. All the members of a body cannot be the head and the heart; there must be feet and hands, small as well as great, those who obey as well as those who command. And if each one said openly that he wishes to command and never obey, as indeed each one naturally wishes, it is visible that all political bodies would destroy themselves, and that disorder and injustice would reign everywhere. It has therefore been necessary that those who have the most intelligence and who are the most suited to become the noble parts of this body and to command others should be naturally civil—that is, they should be inclined by a secret inclination to show others, by their manners and by civil and honest words, that they judge themselves unworthy that anyone think of them, and that they believe themselves to be the last of men, but that those to whom they speak are worthy of all sorts of honors, and that they have much esteem and veneration for them. Finally, for lack of charity and love of order, it has been necessary that those who command others have the art of deceiving them by an imaginary abasement that consists only in civilities and words, in order to enjoy without envy this preeminence that is necessary in all bodies. For in this way all men possess in some manner the greatness they desire: the great possess it in reality, and the small and the weak possess it only in imagination, being persuaded in some manner by the compliments of others that they are not regarded for what they are—that is, for the last among men.

It is easy to conclude in passing from what we have just said that it is a very great fault against civility to speak often of oneself, especially when one speaks advantageously of oneself, even though one may have all sorts of good qualities, since it is not permissible to speak to the persons with whom one converses as if one regarded them as beneath oneself, except on certain occasions and when there are external and perceptible signs that elevate us above them. For finally, contempt is the worst of injuries: it is what is most capable of breaking society; and naturally we should not expect that a man to whom we have made known that we regard him as beneath us could ever join with us, because men cannot suffer being the last part of the body they compose.

The inclination that men have to pay compliments is therefore very suitable for counterbalancing that which they have for esteem and elevation, and for softening the inner pain felt by those who are the last parts of the political body. And one cannot doubt that the mixture of these two inclinations produces very good effects for maintaining society.

But there is a strange corruption in these inclinations, as also in friendship, compassion, benevolence, and the others that tend to unite men together. That which should maintain civil society is often the cause of its disunion and ruin; and, not to stray from my subject, it is often the cause of the communication and establishment of error.

It leads us to approve our friends’ thoughts and to deceive them with false praise.**

Of all the inclinations necessary to civil society, those that cast us most into error are friendship, favor, gratitude, and all the inclinations that lead us to speak too advantageously of others in their presence.

We do not confine our love within the person of our friends; we also love with them all the things that belong to them in some way; and as they usually show enough passion for the defense of their opinions, they incline us insensibly to believe them, to approve them, and to defend them even with more obstinacy and passion than they do themselves; because they would often have poor grace to support them with warmth, and no one can find fault with us for defending them. In them it would be self-love; in us it is generosity.

We bear affection for other men for many reasons, for they can please us and serve us in different ways. The resemblance of humors, inclinations, employments, their air, their manners, their virtue, their goods, the affection or esteem they show us, the services they have rendered us or we hope from them, and many other particular reasons, determine us to love them. If it happens, then, that some friend of ours—that is, some person who has the same inclinations, who is well made, who speaks in an agreeable manner, whom we believe virtuous or of high condition, who shows us affection and esteem, who has rendered us some service or from whom we hope for some, or whom we love for some other particular reason—if it happens, I say, that this person advances some proposition, we let ourselves be immediately persuaded without making use of our reason. We support his opinion without troubling ourselves whether it conforms to truth, and often even against our own conscience, according to the obscurity and confusion of our mind, according to the corruption of our heart, and according to the advantages we hope to draw from our false generosity.

It is not necessary to bring here particular examples of these things, for one is almost never for a single hour in company without noticing several if one wishes to reflect a little upon it. Favor and laughter, as they say ordinarily, are only rarely on the side of truth, but almost always on the side of the persons one loves. The speaker is obliging and civil; he is therefore right. If what he says is only probable, it is regarded as true; and if what he advances is absolutely ridiculous and impertinent, it will become at the very least highly probable. He is a man who loves me, who esteems me, who has rendered me some service, who is in the disposition and power to render me more, who has supported my opinion on other occasions: I would therefore be ungrateful and imprudent if I opposed his and if I even failed to applaud him. Thus one makes sport of truth, makes it serve one’s interests, and embraces each other’s false opinions.

An honest man should not find fault with being instructed and enlightened when it is done according to the rules of civility; and when our friends take offense at our modestly representing to them that they are mistaken, we must allow them to love themselves and their errors, since they wish it and we have no power to command them or change their minds.

But a true friend should never approve his friend’s errors, for finally we should consider that we do them more harm than we think when we defend their opinions without discernment. Our applause only inflates their hearts and confirms them in their errors; they become incorrigible; they act and decide finally as if they had become infallible.

Whence comes it that the richest, the most powerful, the most noble, and generally all those who are elevated above others, so often believe themselves infallible, and comport themselves as if they had much more reason than those of vile or middling condition, if not because one approves indifferently and cowardly all their thoughts? Thus the approval we give to our friends makes them gradually believe that they have more intelligence than others, which makes them proud, bold, imprudent, and capable of falling into the grossest errors without perceiving it.

This is why our enemies often render us a better service and enlighten our minds much more by their oppositions than our friends do by their approvals; because our enemies oblige us to be on our guard and attentive to the things we advance; which alone suffices to make us recognize our wanderings. But our friends only lull us to sleep and give us a false confidence that makes us vain and ignorant. Men should therefore never admire their friends and yield to their sentiments through friendship, just as they should never oppose those of their enemies through enmity; but they should rid themselves of their flattering or contradicting spirit to become sincere and approve evidence and truth wherever they find it.

We must also firmly impress upon our minds that most men are inclined to flattery or to paying us compliments by a sort of natural inclination, to appear witty, to attract the benevolence of others, and in hope of some return, or finally by a sort of malice and raillery; and we should not let ourselves be dazzled by all that may be said to us. Do we not see every day that persons who do not know each other nevertheless elevate each other to the skies the very first time they see and speak with one another? And what is more ordinary than to see people who give hyperbolic praises and who show extraordinary movements of admiration to a person who has just spoken in public, even in the presence of those with whom they made fun of him some time before? Whenever one exclaims, turns pale with admiration, and is as if surprised by the things one hears, it is not a good proof that the speaker says wonderful things, but rather that he speaks to flattering men, that he has friends or perhaps enemies who are amusing themselves at his expense. It is that he speaks in an engaging manner, that he is rich and powerful; or, if one wishes, it is a fairly good proof that what he says is supported by the confused and obscure notions of the senses, but very touching and agreeable, or that he has some fire of imagination, since praises are given to friendship, to riches, to dignities, to probabilities, and very rarely to truth.

One might expect that, having treated in general the inclinations of minds, I should descend into an exact detail of all the particular movements they feel at the sight of good and evil—that is, that I should explain the nature of love, hatred, joy, sadness, and all the intellectual passions, both general and particular, both simple and compound. But I am not committed to explaining all the different movements of which minds are capable.

I am glad to let it be known that my principal design in all that I have written thus far on the search for truth has been to make men feel their weakness and ignorance, and that we are all subject to error and sin. I have said it, and I say it again, perhaps it will be remembered: I have never had the intention of treating thoroughly the nature of the mind; but I have been obliged to say something about it to explain errors in their principle, to explain them in order, in a word, to make myself intelligible; and if I have passed the bounds I set for myself, it is because I had, it seemed to me, new things to say that appeared to me consequential, and that I even believed could be read with pleasure. Perhaps I was mistaken, but I had to have this presumption to have the courage to write them; for how can one speak when one does not hope to be heard? It is true that I have said many things that do not appear so much to belong to the subject I treat as this particular on the movements of the soul; I admit it, but I do not pretend to obligate myself to anything when I make an order for myself. I make an order for myself to conduct myself, but I pretend that I am permitted to turn my head as I walk if I find something worthy of consideration. I pretend even that I am permitted to rest in some out-of-the-way places, provided I do not lose sight of the path I must follow. Those who do not wish to relax with me may pass on; they are permitted, they have only to turn the page; but if they let themselves go, let them know that there are many people who find that these places I choose for my rest make the path sweeter and more agreeable for them.