The Liberation of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon

Author:Hendrik Willem van Loon [van Loon, Hendrik Willem]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Philosophy
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV

* * *

RABELAIS

Social upheavals make strange bedfellows.

The name of Erasmus can be printed in a respectable book intended for the entire family. But to mention Rabelais in public is considered little short of a breach of good manners. Indeed, so dangerous is this fellow that laws have been passed to keep his wicked works out of the hands of innocent children.

The works of Rabelais to the average citizen of the twentieth century are about as dull reading as Tom Jones or The House of the Seven Gables. Few people ever get beyond the first interminable chapter.

In the second place, there is nothing intentionally suggestive in what he says. Rabelais used the common vocabulary of his time. That does not happen to be the common vernacular of our own day. But in the era of the bucolic blues, when ninety per cent, of the human race lived close to the soil, a spade was actually a spade and lady-dogs were not ‘lady-dogs.’

No, the current objections to the works of this distinguished surgeon go much deeper than a mere disapproval of his rich but somewhat outspoken collection of idioms. They are caused by the horror which many excellent people experience when they come face to face with the point of view of a man who point blank refuses to be defeated by life.

The human race, as far as I can make out, is divided into two sorts of people: those who say “yes” unto life and those who say “no.” The former accept it and courageously they endeavour to make the best of whatever bargain fate has handed out to them.

The latter accept it too (how could they help themselves?) but they hold the gift in great contempt and fret about it like children who have been given a new little brother when they really wanted a puppy or a railway train.

But whereas the cheerful brethren of ‘yes’ are willing to accept their morose neighbours at their own valuation and tolerate them, and do not hinder them when they fill the landscape with their lamentations and the hideous monuments to their own despair, the fraternity of ‘no’ rarely extends this same courtesy to the parties of the first part. Indeed if they had their own way the ‘nays’ would immediately purge this planet of the ‘yeas.’

As this cannot very well be done, they satisfy the demands of their jealous souls by the incessant persecution of those who claim that the world belongs to the living and not to the dead.

Dr Rabelais belonged to the former class. Few of his patients or his thoughts ever went out to the cemetery. This, no doubt, was very regrettable, but we cannot all be grave diggers. There have to be a few Poloniuses and a world composed exclusively of Hamlets would be a terrible place of abode.

As for the story of Rabelais’ life, there was nothing very mysterious about it. The few details which are omitted in the books written by his friends are found in the works of his enemies and as a result we can follow his career with a fair degree of accuracy.

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