Of wisdom three books / written originally in French by the Sieur de Charron ; with an account of the author, made English by George Stanhope ...

CHAP. XXXVIII. III. Inconstancy.

MAN is a Creature wonderfully Various and Mutable; and the great Difficulty of coming to any Judgment concerning Him, which should be certain, fixt, and universal, proceeds from hence, That our Lives are not all of a Piece, but made up of disagreeing and different Parcels. Most part of our Actions do not arise from steady Thought, but are sudden Starts and Sallies, the Effects of Accident and Impulse, and look like Shreds of se∣veral Stuffs patch'd up, and sewed together. First Irresolution, and then Fickleness and Change of Measures when we have resolved, are the com∣monest and most apparent Vices of Humane Na∣ture. And our Actions, 'tis plain, do so strangely cross and contradict one another, that it is not easie to believe so many Contrarieties should all be deriv'd from the same Original. We change

and are not sensible of it: We run eagerly after every Whimsie of our own Appetites, and are born away by the Stream of Accidents and Passions; Tis no more Reason, but Inclination that governs us:* 1.1 But sure it is, nothing can ever be regular and stea∣dy, which is not directed and order'd by Reason and Me∣thod. Thus our very Minds and Tempers vary too; the Climate, the Weather, and the Motions of Time and Seasons, make considerable Alterations and Differences in us.

† 1.2In each Man's Breast This Weathercock, the Mind, Moves with the Sun, and shifts with every Wind.

Our whole Life is nothing else, but one unequal, irregular, and many-figur'd Motion; nothing strait, nothing steady; We are perpetually mo∣ving and turning; and the very change of our Posture is so frequent, as to be an Uneasiness and Trouble to us.‡ 1.3 No Man continues to wish and design the same thing two Days together. Now the Man is for Marrying; by and by a Mistress is preferr'd before a Wife: Now he is Ambitious and Aspiring, and looks Big; presently the meanest Servant is not more humble, more condescending than He. This Hour he squanders his Money away; the next he turns Miser, and scrapes all he can. Sometimes he is frugal and serious; sometimes pro∣fuse, airy, and gay. Thus we shift our Characters each Moment, and act a Thousand several Parts.

The Mind is with it self at strife, And disagrees in all the Course of Life; For what it hated now, it streight desires, What now it threw away, it most admires. Creech.

So little is any of us the same; and so much har∣der is it to Sound and Know Man perfectly, than any other Creature whatsoever: For he is full of Doubles and Trickings; the closest, cunningest, and most Counterfeit part of the Creation. He hath a Thousand little Closets and false Doors, where he hides, and comes out again; Sometimes a Man, sometimes a Monster; a Thousand Breath∣ing-holes, at which he blows sometimes Hot, some∣times Cold, and almost blinds you with Cloud and Smoak. Every Agitation is but a fresh Folly; and the Course of his Life One continu'd Errour. He is born in the Morning, and dies at Night; is sometimes in Chains, and sometimes at large; sometimes God, and sometimes an Insect: He Langhs and Cries for the same thing; is satisfy'd and dissatisfy'd; ever wishing, and never knowing what he would be at. Sometimes transported, and ready to leap out of his Skin for Joy; and presently again so melancholy and dejected, that nothing can con∣tent, nothing quiet him, or make him think Life tolerable.

Quod petiit spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit, Aestuat, & vitae disconvenit ordine toto. Horat. 1. Ep. L. 1.

Notes

• * 1.1

  At nil potet esse aequabile, quod non à certâ ratione profi∣ciscitur.
• † 1.2

  Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse

  Jupiter auctiferâ lustravit lampade terras.
• ‡ 1.3

  Nemo non quotidie consilium mutat & votum, modo uxo∣rem vult, modo amicam; modo regnare vult, modo non est eo officiosior servus; nunc pecuniam spargit, nunc rapit; modo frugi videtur & gravis, modo prodigus & vanus; mutamus subinde personam.