A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 05

Tell me, if the Supreme Being, who presides over all nature, cannot forever preserve these elementary atoms which he has so rarely endowed? "Igneus est ollis vigor et cœlestis origo."

The celebrated Le Cat calls this vivifying fluid "an amphibious being, endowed by its author with a superior refinement which links it to immaterial beings, and thereby ennobles and elevates it into that medium nature which we recognize, and which is the source of all its properties."

You are of the opinion of Le Cat? I would be so too if I could; but there are so many fools and villains that I dare not. I can only think quietly in my own way at Mount Krapak. Let others think as well as they are allowed to think, whether at Salamanca or Bergamo.

SECTION IIWhat is Understood by Fire Used Figuratively

Fire, particularly in poetry, often signifies love, and is employed more elegantly in the plural than in the singular. Corneille often says "un beau feu" for a virtuous and noble love. A man has fire in his conversation; that does not mean that he has brilliant and enlightened ideas, but lively expressions animated by action.

Fire in writing does not necessarily imply lightness and beauty, but vivacity, multiplied figures, and spontaneous ideas. Fire is a merit in speech and writing only when it is well managed. It is said that poets are animated with a divine fire when they are sublime; genius cannot exist without fire, but fire may be possessed without genius.

FIRMNESS

Firmness comes from firm, and has a different signification from solidity and hardness; a squeezed cloth, a beaten negro, have firmness without being hard or solid.

It must always be remembered that modifications of the soul can only be expressed by physical images; we say firmness of soul, and of mind, which does not signify that they are harder or more solid than usual.

Firmness is the exercise of mental courage; it means a decided resolution; while obstinacy, on the contrary, signifies blindness. Those who praise the firmness of Tacitus are not so much in the wrong as P. Bouhours pretends; it is an accidental ill-chosen term, which expresses energy and strength of thought and of style. It may be said that La Bruyère has a firm style, and that many other writers have only a hard one.

FLATTERY

I find not one monument of flattery in remote antiquity; there is no flattery in Hesiod – none in Homer. Their stories are not addressed to a Greek, elevated to some dignity, nor to his lady; as each canto of Thomson's "Seasons" is dedicated to some person of rank, or as so many forgotten epistles in verse have been dedicated, in England, to gentlemen or ladies of quality, with a brief eulogy, and the arms of the patron or patroness placed at the head of the work.

Nor is there any flattery in Demosthenes. This way of asking alms harmoniously began, if I mistake not, with Pindar. No hand can be stretched out more emphatically.

It appears to me that among the Romans great flattery is to be dated from the time of Augustus. Julius Cæsar had scarcely time to be flattered. There is not, extant, any dedicatory epistle to Sulla, Marius, or Carbo, nor to their wives, or their mistresses. I can well believe that very bad verses were presented to Lucullus and Pompey; but, thank God, we do not have them.

It is a great spectacle to behold Cicero equal in dignity to Cæsar, speaking before him as advocate for a king of Bithynia and Lesser Armenia, named Deiotarus, accused of laying ambuscades for him, and even designing to assassinate him. Cicero begins with acknowledging that he is disconcerted in his presence. He calls him the vanquisher of the world – "victorem orbis terrarum." He flatters him; but this adulation does not yet amount to baseness; some sense of shame still remains.

But with Augustus there are no longer any bounds; the senate decrees his apotheosis during his lifetime. Under the succeeding emperors this flattery becomes the ordinary tribute, and is no longer anything more than a style. It is impossible to flatter any one, when the most extravagant adulation has become the ordinary currency.

In Europe, we have had no great monuments of flattery before Louis XIV. His father, Louis XIII., had very little incense offered him. We find no mention of him, except in one or two of Malherbe's odes. There, indeed, according to custom, he is called "thou greatest of kings" – as the Spanish poets say to the king of Spain, and the English poets (laureate) to the king of England; but the better part of the poet's praises is bestowed on Cardinal Richelieu, whose soul is great and fearless; who practises so well the healing art of government, and who knows how to cure all our evils:

Dont l'âme toute grande est une âme hardîe,Qui pratique si bien l'art de nous secourir,Que, pourvu qu'il soit cru, nous n'avons maladie,Qu'il ne sache guérir.

Upon Louis XIV. flattery came in a deluge. But he was not like the man said to have been smothered by the rose leaves heaped upon him; on the contrary, he thrived the more.

Flattery, when it has some plausible pretext, may not be so pernicious as it has been thought; it sometimes encourages to great acts; but its excess is vicious, like the excess of satire. La Fontaine says, and pretends to say it after Æsop:

On ne peut trop louer trois sortes de personnes;Les dieux, sa maitresse, et son roi.Æsope le disait; j'y souscris quant à moi;Ces sont maximes toujours bonnes.Your flattery to three sorts of folks apply: —You cannot say too civil thingsTo gods, to mistresses, and kings;So honest Æsop said – and so say I.

Honest Æsop said no such thing; nor do we find that he flattered any king, or any concubine. It must not be thought that kings are in reality flattered by all the flatteries that are heaped upon them; for the greater number never reach them.

One common folly of orators is that of exhausting themselves in praising some prince who will never hear of their praises. But what is most lamentable of all is that Ovid should have praised Augustus even while he was dating "de Ponto."

The perfection of the ridiculous might be found in the compliments which preachers address to kings, when they have the happiness of exhibiting before their majesties. – "To the reverend Father Gaillard, preacher to the king." Ah! most reverend father, do you preach only for the king? Are you like the monkey at the fair, which leaps "only for the king?"

FORCE (PHYSICAL)

What is "force?" Where does it reside? Whence does it come? Does it perish? Or is it ever the same?

It has pleased us to denominate "force" that weight which one body exercises upon another. Here is a ball of two hundred pounds' weight on this floor; it presses the floor, you say, with a force of two hundred pounds. And this you call a "dead force." But are not these words "dead" and "force" a little contradictory? Might we not as well say "dead alive" – yes and no at once?

This ball "weighs." Whence comes this "weight?" and is this weight a "force?" If the ball were not impeded, would it go directly to the centre of the earth? Whence has it this incomprehensible property?

It is supported by my floor; and you freely give to my floor the "vis inertiæ" – "inertiæ" signifying "inactivity," "impotence." Now is it not singular that "impotence" should be denominated "force?"

What is the living force which acts in your arm and your leg? What is the source of it? How can it be supposed that this force exists when you are dead? Does it go and take up its abode elsewhere, as a man goes to another house when his own is in ruins?

How can it have been said that there is always the same force in nature? There must, then, have been always the same number of men, or of active beings equivalent to men. Why does a body in motion communicate its force to another body with which it comes in contact?

These are questions which neither geometry, nor mechanics, nor metaphysics can answer. Would you arrive at the first principle of the force of bodies, and of motion, you must ascend to a still superior principle. Why is there "anything?"

FORCE – STRENGTH

These words have been transplanted from simple to figurative speech. They are applied to all the parts of the body that are in motion, in action – the force of the heart, which some have made four hundred pounds, and some three ounces; the force of the viscera, the lungs, the voice; the force of the arm.

The metaphor which has transported these words into morals has made them express a cardinal virtue. Strength, in this sense, is the courage to support adversity, and to undertake virtuous and difficult actions; it is the "animi fortitudo."

The strength of the mind is penetration and depth – "ingenii vis." Nature gives it as she gives that of the body; moderate labor increases and excessive labor diminishes it.

The force of an argument consists in a clear exposition of clearly-exhibited proofs, and a just conclusion; with mathematical theorems it has nothing to do; because the evidence of a demonstration can be made neither more nor less; only it may be arrived at by a longer or a shorter path – a simpler or more complicated method. It is in doubtful questions that the force of reasoning is truly applicable.

The force of eloquence is not merely a train of just and vigorous reasoning, which is not incompatible with dryness; this force, requires floridity, striking images, and energetic expressions. Thus it has been said, that the sermons of Bourdaloue have force, those of Massillon more elegance. Verses may have strength, and want every other beauty. The strength of a line in our language consists principally in saying something in each hemistich.

Strength in painting is the expression of the muscles, which, by feeling touches, are made to appear under the flesh that covers them. There is too much strength when the muscles are too strongly articulated. The attitudes of the combatants have great strength in the battles of Constantine, drawn by Raphael and Julio Romano; and in those of Cæsar, painted by Lebrun. Inordinate strength is harsh in painting and bombastic in poetry.

Some philosophers have asserted that force is a property inherent in matter; that each invisible particle, or rather monad, is endowed with an active force; but it would be as difficult to demonstrate this assertion as it would be to prove that whiteness is a quality inherent in matter, as the Trévoux dictionary says in the article "Inherent."

The strength of every animal has arrived at the highest when the animal has attained its full growth. It decreases when the muscles no longer receive the same quantity of nourishment: and this quantity ceases to be the same when the animal spirits no longer communicate to the muscles their accustomed motion. It is probable that the animal spirits are of fire, inasmuch as old men want motion and strength in proportion as they want warmth.

FRANCHISE

A word which always gives an idea of liberty in whatever sense it is taken; a word derived from the Franks, who were always free. It is so ancient, that when the Cid besieged and took Toledo, in the eleventh century, franchies or franchises were given to all the French who went on this expedition, and who established themselves at Toledo. All walled cities had franchises, liberties, and privileges, even in the greatest anarchy of feudal power. In all countries possessing assemblies or states, the sovereign swore, on his accession, to guard their liberties.

This name, which has been given generally to the rights of the people, to immunities, and to sanctuaries or asylums, has been more particularly applied to the quarters of the ambassadors of the court of Rome. It was a plot of ground around their palaces, which was larger or smaller according to the will of the ambassador. The ground was an asylum for criminals, who could not be there pursued. This franchise was restricted, under Innocent XI. to the inside of their palaces. Churches and convents had the same privileges in Italy, but not in other states. There are in Paris several places of sanctuary, in which debtors cannot be seized for their debts by common justice, and where mechanics can pursue their trades without being freemen. Mechanics have this privilege in the Faubourg St. Antoine, but it is not an asylum like the Temple.

The word "franchise," which usually expresses the liberties of a nation, city, or person, is sometimes used to signify liberty of speech, of counsel, or of a law proceeding; but there is a great difference between speaking with frankness and speaking with liberty. In a speech to a superior, liberty is a studied or excessive boldness – frankness outstepping its just bounds. To speak with liberty is to speak without fear; to speak with frankness is to conduct yourself openly and nobly. To speak with too much liberty is to become audacious; to speak with too much frankness is to be too open-hearted.

FRANCIS XAVIER

It would not be amiss to know something true concerning the celebrated Francis Xavero, whom we call Xavier, surnamed the Apostle of the Indies. Many people still imagine that he established Christianty along the whole southern coast of India, in a score of islands, and above all in Japan. But thirty years ago, even a doubt on the subject was hardly to be tolerated in Europe. The Jesuits have not hesitated to compare him to St. Paul. His travels and miracles had been written in part by Tursellinus and Orlandini, by Levena, and by Partoli, all Jesuits, but very little known in France; and the less people were acquainted with the details the greater was his reputation.

When the Jesuit Bouhours composed his history, he (Bouhours) was considered as a man of very enlightened mind, and was living in the best company in Paris; I do not mean the company of Jesus, but that of men of the world the most distinguished for intellect and knowledge. No one wrote in a purer or more unaffected style; it was even proposed in the French Academy that it should trespass against the rules of its institution, by receiving Father Bouhours into its body. He had another great advantage in the influence of his order, which then, by an almost inconceivable illusion, governed all Catholic princes.

Sound criticism was, it is true, beginning to rear its head; but its progress was slow: men were, in general, more anxious to write ably than to write what was true.

Bouhours wrote the lives of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier almost without encountering a single objection. Even his comparison of St. Ignatius to Cæsar, and Xavier to Alexander, passed without animadversion; it was tolerated as a flower of rhetoric.

I have seen in the Jesuit's college, Rue St. Jacques, a picture twelve feet long and twelve high, representing Ignatius and Xavier ascending to heaven, each in a magnificent chariot drawn by four milk-white horses; and above, the Eternal Father, adorned with a fine white beard descending to His waist, with Jesus and the Virgin beside him; the Holy Ghost beneath them, in the form of a dove; and angels joining their hands, and bending down to receive Father Ignatius and Father Xavier.

Had anyone publicly made a jest of this picture, the reverend Father La Chaise, confessor to the king, would infallibly have had the sacrilegious scoffer honored with a lettre de cachet.

It cannot be denied that Francis Xavier is comparable to Alexander, inasmuch as they both went to India – so is Ignatius to Cæsar, both having been in Gaul. But Xavier, the vanquisher of the devil, went far beyond Alexander, the conqueror of Darius. How gratifying it is to see him going, in the capacity of a volunteer converter, from Spain into France, from France to Rome, from Rome to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to Mozambique, after making the tour of Africa. He stays a long time at Mozambique, where he receives from God the gift of prophecy: he then proceeds to Melinda, where he disputes on the Koran with the Mahometans, who doubtless understand his religion as well as he understands theirs, and where he even finds caciques, although they are to be found nowhere but in America. The Portuguese vessel arrives at the island of Zocotora, which is unquestionably that of the Amazons: there he converts all the islanders, and builds a church. Thence he reaches Goa, where he finds a pillar on which St. Thomas had engraved, that one day St. Xavier should come and re-establish the Christian religion, which had flourished of old in India. Xavier has no difficulty whatever in perusing the ancient characters, whether Indian or Hebrew, in which this prophecy is expressed. He forthwith takes up a hand-bell, assembles all the little boys around him, explains to them the creed, and baptizes them – but his great delight was to marry the Indians to their mistresses.

From Goa he speeds to Cape Comorin, to the fishing coast, to the kingdom of Travancore. His greatest anxiety, on arriving in any country, is to quit it. He embarks in the first Portuguese ship he finds, whithersoever it is bound, it matters not to Xavier; provided only that he is travelling somewhere, he is content. He is received through charity, and returns two or three times to Goa, to Cochin, to Cori, to Negapatam, to Meliapour. A vessel is departing for Malacca, and Xavier accordingly takes his passage for Malacca, in great despair that he has not yet had an opportunity of seeing Siam, Pegu, and Tonquin. We find him in the island of Sumatra, at Borneo, at Macassar, in the Moluccas, and especially at Ternate and Amboyna. The king of Ternate had, in his immense seraglio, a hundred women in the capacity of wives, and seven or eight hundred in that of concubines. The first thing Xavier does is to turn them all out. Please to observe that the island of Ternate is two leagues across.

Thence finding another Portugese vessel bound for Ceylon, he returns to Ceylon, where he makes various excursions to Goa and to Cochin. The Portuguese were already trading to Japan. A ship sails for that country: Xavier takes care to embark in it, and visits all the Japan islands. In short (says the Jesuit Bouhours), the whole length of Xavier's routes, joined together, would reach several times around the globe.

Be it observed, that he set out on his travels in 1542, and died in 1552. If he had time to learn the languages of all the nations he visited, it was no trifling miracle: if he had the gift of tongues, it was a greater miracle still. But unfortunately, in several of his letters, he says that he is obliged to employ an interpreter; and in others he acknowledges that he finds extreme difficulty in learning the Japanese language, which he cannot pronounce.

The Jesuit Bouhours, in giving some of his letters, has no doubt that "St. Francis Xavier had the gift of tongues"; but he acknowledges that "he had it not always." "He had it," says he, "on several occasions; for, without having learned the Chinese tongue, he preached to the Chinese every morning at Amanguchi, which is the capital of a province in Japan."

He must have been perfectly acquainted with all the languages of the East; for he made songs in them of the Paternoster, Ave-Maria, and Credo, for the instruction of the little boys and girls.

But the best of all is, that this man, who had occasion for a dragoman, spoke every tongue at once, like the apostles; and when he spoke Portuguese, in which language Bouhours acknowledges that the saint explained himself very ill, the Indians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the inhabitants of Ceylon and of Sumatra, all understood him perfectly.

One day in particular, when he was preaching on the immateriality of the soul, the motion of the planets, the eclipses of the sun and moon, the rainbow, sin and grace, paradise and purgatory, he made himself understood to twenty persons of different nations.

Is it asked how such a man could make so many converts in Japan? The simple answer is that he did not make any; but other Jesuits, who staid a long time in the country, by favor of the treaties between the kings of Portugal and the emperors of Japan, converted so many people, that a civil war ensued, which is said to have cost the lives of nearly four hundred thousand men. This is the most noted prodigy that the missionaries have worked in Japan.

But those of Francis Xavier are not without their merit. Among his host of miracles, we find no fewer than eight children raised from the dead. "Xavier's greatest miracle," says the Jesuit Bouhours, "was not his raising so many of the dead to life, but his not himself dying of fatigue."

But the pleasantest of his miracles is, that having dropped his crucifix into the sea, near the island of Baranura, which I am inclined to think was the island of Barataria, a crab came, four-and-twenty hours after, bringing the cane between its claws.

The most brilliant of all, and after which no other deserves to be related, is that in a storm which lasted three days, he was constantly in two ships, a hundred and fifty leagues apart, and served one of them as a pilot. The truth of this miracle was attested by all the passengers, who could neither deceive nor be deceived.

Yet all this was written seriously and with success in the age of Louis XIV., in the age of the "Provincial Letters," of Racine's tragedies, of "Bayle's Dictionary," and of so many other learned works.

It would appear to be a sort of miracle that a man of sense, like Bouhours, should have committed such a mass of extravagance to the press, if we did not know to what excesses men can be carried by the corporate spirit in general, and the monachal spirit in particular. We have more than two hundred volumes entirely in this taste, compiled by monks; but what is most to be lamented is, that the enemies of the monks also compile. They compile more agreeably, and are read. It is most deplorable that, in nineteen-twentieths of Europe, there is no longer that profound respect and just veneration for the monks which is still felt for them in some of the villages of Aragon and Calabria.

The miracles of St. Francis Xavier, the achievements of Don Quixote, the Comic Romance, and the convulsionaries of St. Medard, have an equal claim on our admiration and reverence.

After speaking of Francis Xavier it would be useless to discuss the history of the other Francises. If you would be instructed thoroughly, consult the conformities of St. Francis of Assisi.

Since the fine history of St. Francis Xavier by the Jesuit Bouhours, we have had the history of St. Francis Régis by the Jesuit Daubenton, confessor to Philip V. of Spain: but this is small-beer after brandy. In the history of the blessed Régis, there is not even a single resuscitation.

FRANKS – FRANCE – FRENCH

Italy has always preserved its name, notwithstanding the pretended establishment of Æneas, which should have left some traces of the language, characters, and manners of Phrygia, if he ever came with Achates and so many others, into the province of Rome, then almost a desert. The Goths, Lombards, Franks, Allemani or Germans, who have by turns invaded Italy, have at least left it its name.

The Tyrians, Africans, Romans, Vandals, Visigoths, and Saracens, have, one after the other, been masters of Spain, yet the name of Spain exists. Germany has also always preserved its own name; it has merely joined that of Allemagne to it, which appellation it did not receive from any conqueror.

The Gauls are almost the only people in the west who have lost their name. This name was originally Walch or Welsh; the Romans always substituted a G for the W, which is barbarous: of "Welsh" they made Galli, Gallia. They distinguished the Celtic, the Belgic, and the Aquitanic Gaul, each of which spoke a different jargon.

Who were, and whence came these Franks, who in such small numbers and little time possessed themselves of all the Gauls, which in ten years Cæsar could not entirely reduce? I am reading an author who commences by these words: "The Franks from whom we descend." … Ha! my friend, who has told you that you descend in a right line from a Frank? Clovodic, whom we call Clovis, probably had not more than twenty thousand men, badly clothed and armed, when he subjugated about eight or ten millions of Welsh or Gauls, held in servitude by three or four Roman legions. We have not a single family in France which can furnish, I do not say the least proof, but the least probability, that it had its origin from a Frank.