Critical Miscellanies Vol 2 of 3 Essay 1 Vauvenargues edition by John Morley Politics Social Sciences eBooks
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Critical Miscellanies Vol 2 of 3 Essay 1 Vauvenargues edition by John Morley Politics Social Sciences eBooks
An introduction to a French aphorist from the time of Voltaire, best read in conjunction with Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims, although this essay itself is a sort of mini-anthology of V.'s best maxims.'The cause of most books of morality being so insipid,' he says, 'is that their authors are not sincere; is that, being feeble echoes of one another, they could not venture to publish their own real maxims and private sentiments.' One of the secrets of his own freedom from this ordinary insipidity of moralists was his freedom also from their pretentiousness and insincerity.
Morley sees Vauvenargues as more moderate than Pascal or La Rochefoucauld:
... Vauvenargues is thus confronted by two sinister pictures of humanity—the one of its moral meanness and littleness, the other of its intellectual poverty and impotency. He turned away from both of them, and found in magnanimous and unsophisticated feeling, of which he was conscious in himself and observant in others, a compensation alike for the selfishness of some men and the intellectual limitations of all men. This compensation was ample enough to restore the human self-respect that Pascal and Rochefoucauld had done their best to weaken. The truth in that disparagement was indisputable so far as it went. It was not a kind of truth, however, on which it is good for the world much to dwell, and it is the thinkers like Vauvenargues who build up and inspire high resolve. 'Scarcely any maxim,' runs one of his own, 'is true in all respects.' We must take them in pairs to find out the mean truth; and to understand the ways of men, so far as words about men can help us, we must read with appreciation not only Vauvenargues, who said that great thoughts come from the heart, but La Rochefoucauld, who called the intelligence the dupe of the heart, and Pascal, who saw only desperate creatures, miserably perishing before one another's eyes in the grim dungeon of the universe.
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Critical Miscellanies Vol 2 of 3 Essay 1 Vauvenargues edition by John Morley Politics Social Sciences eBooks Reviews
Is ok, Cant do much better for the price, Can be a slow read at some times in the book.
An introduction to a French aphorist from the time of Voltaire, best read in conjunction with Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims, although this essay itself is a sort of mini-anthology of V.'s best maxims.
'The cause of most books of morality being so insipid,' he says, 'is that their authors are not sincere; is that, being feeble echoes of one another, they could not venture to publish their own real maxims and private sentiments.' One of the secrets of his own freedom from this ordinary insipidity of moralists was his freedom also from their pretentiousness and insincerity.
Morley sees Vauvenargues as more moderate than Pascal or La Rochefoucauld
... Vauvenargues is thus confronted by two sinister pictures of humanity—the one of its moral meanness and littleness, the other of its intellectual poverty and impotency. He turned away from both of them, and found in magnanimous and unsophisticated feeling, of which he was conscious in himself and observant in others, a compensation alike for the selfishness of some men and the intellectual limitations of all men. This compensation was ample enough to restore the human self-respect that Pascal and Rochefoucauld had done their best to weaken. The truth in that disparagement was indisputable so far as it went. It was not a kind of truth, however, on which it is good for the world much to dwell, and it is the thinkers like Vauvenargues who build up and inspire high resolve. 'Scarcely any maxim,' runs one of his own, 'is true in all respects.' We must take them in pairs to find out the mean truth; and to understand the ways of men, so far as words about men can help us, we must read with appreciation not only Vauvenargues, who said that great thoughts come from the heart, but La Rochefoucauld, who called the intelligence the dupe of the heart, and Pascal, who saw only desperate creatures, miserably perishing before one another's eyes in the grim dungeon of the universe.
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