The Critic by Gracián Baltasar

Author:Gracián, Baltasar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-04T04:00:00+00:00

The Ninth Crisis

The Moral Anatomy of Man

The ancient ministers of Delphos had engraved in letters of gold on the temple walls, and the wise philosophers had imprinted with larger characters in their hearts, that recorded sentence of bias, cognosce teipsum: know thyself. For none of all created natures errs in the way he should run or misses that mark which the race of his life should tend to save man alone, whose distemper is chiefly caused by that noble faculty of freewill. Nor can the knowledge of other things avail while ignorance dwells at home and misapprehends the operations of itself. As often as he renders himself a captive unto vice so does he degenerate to the vile servitude of a slave. There is no robber who pillages so much nor so oppresses the unwary traveler, as the ignorance of a man's self betrays him to be preyed on by others. In many it is such a height of stupidity that they are neither sensible of how insensible they are nor do they observe how little they observe or consider. Yet Andrenio seems worthy to be exempted from this common folly, when he thus satisfied the curiosity of Artemia:

"Of all these wonders I saw and varieties of satisfaction I that day enjoyed, there was none which more affected my thoughts (I speak it with some astonishment, but yet with truth) than myself. The more I revolved and considered in my understanding, the more I found it a subject to admire."

"This is that," said Artemia, "which I have longed to hear you relate and was a theme that the greatest wit of our times has so much applauded, calling man, above all other created wonders, the greatest wonder and effect of omnipotence. The same conclusion we may make from the general maxim of the principal philosopher, propter quod unumquodque est tale, illud est magis tale: that always is more, for whose sake another is such. So that if for the sake of man stones were created with so much virtue, flowers with so much beauty, and the stars, which twinkle with so illustrious a glory, in what sphere of beauty must man shine above all these, for whose use and service they were designed and destined? He is the creature of all most noble, the monarch of this great palace of the world, invested in possession of the Earth, having a commission delivered to him as governor and deputy to rule for the best advantage both of himself and his maker."

"At first," proceeded Andrenio, "I had only some rude notions and conceptions of myself, until light of the day illuminated my thoughts. The crystals of a fountain were the only glass wherein to contemplate and view the delineation of my parts, in which I perceived my proportion as different from what my imagination fancied. This caused in me so much admiration and delight that I cannot express with how much content and pleasure I was deceived. I reflected again on myself and thought I was not yet so foolishly ignorant as I was contemplative.

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