In Praise of Folly

But methinks I heat the philosophers opposing it and saying ’tis a miserable thing for a man to be

foolish, to err, mistake, and know nothing truly. Nay rather, this is to be a man. And why they

should call it miserable, I see no reason; forasmuch as we are so born, so bred, so instructed, nay

such is the common condition of us all. And nothing can be called miserable that suits with its kind,

unless perhaps you’ll think a man such because he can neither fly with birds, nor walk on all four

with beasts, and is not armed with horns as a bull. For by the same reason he would call the warlike

horse unfortunate, because he understood not grammar, nor ate cheese-cakes; and the bull miserable,

because he’d make so ill a wrestler. And therefore, as a horse that has no skill in grammar is not

miserable, no more is man in this respect, for that they agree with his nature. But again, the virtuosi

may say that there was particularly added to man the knowledge of sciences, by whose help he

might recompense himself in understanding for what nature cut him short in other things. As if this

had the least face of truth, that Nature that was so solicitously watchful in the production of gnats,

herbs, and flowers should have so slept when she made man, that he should have need to be helped

by sciences, which that old devil Theuth, the evil genius of mankind, first invented for his destruction,

and are so little conducive to happiness that they rather obstruct it; to which purpose they are

properly said to be first found out, as that wise king in Plato argues touching the invention of letters.

Sciences therefore crept into the world with other the pests of mankind, from the same head from

whence all other mischiefs spring; we’ll suppose it devils, for so the name imports when you call

them demons, that is to say, knowing. For that simple people of the golden age, being wholly

ignorant of everything called learning, lived only by the guidance and dictates of nature; for what

use of grammar, where every man spoke the same language and had no further design than to

understand one another? What use of logic, where there was no bickering about the double-meaning

words? What need of rhetoric, where there were no lawsuits? Or to what purpose laws, where there

were no ill manners? from which without doubt good laws first came. Besides, they were more

religious than with an impious curiosity to dive into the secrets of nature, the dimension of stars,

the motions, effects, and hidden causes of things; as believing it a crime for any man to attempt to

be wise beyond his condition. And as to the inquiry of what was beyond heaven, that madness

never came into their heads. But the purity of the golden age declining by degrees, first, as I said

before, arts were invented by the evil genii; and yet but few, and those too received by fewer. After

that the Chaldean superstition and Greek newfangledness, that had little to do, added I know not

how many more; mere torments of wit, and that so great that even grammar alone is work enough

for any man for his whole life.

Though yet among these sciences those only are in esteem that come nearest to common sense,

that is to say, folly. Divines are half starved, naturalists out of heart, astrologers laughed at, and

logicians slighted; only the physician is worth all the rest. And among them too, the more unlearned,

impudent, or unadvised he is, the more he is esteemed, even among princes. For physic, especially

as it is now professed by most men, is nothing but a branch of flattery, no less than rhetoric. Next

them, the second place is given to our law-drivers, if not the first, whose profession, though I say

it myself, most men laugh at as the ass of philosophy; yet there’s scarce any business, either so

great or so small, but is managed by these asses. These purchase their great lordships, while in the

meantime the divine, having run through the whole body of divinity, sits gnawing a radish and is

in continual warfare with lice and fleas. As therefore those arts are best that have the nearest affinity

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In Praise of Folly

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with folly, so are they most happy of all others that have least commerce with sciences and follow

the guidance of Nature, who is in no wise imperfect, unless perhaps we endeavor to leap over those

bounds she has appointed to us. Nature hates all false coloring and is ever best where she is least

adulterated with art.

Go to then, don’t you find among the several kinds of living creatures that they thrive best that

understand no more than what Nature taught them? What is more prosperous or wonderful than

the bee? And though they have not the same judgment of sense as other bodies have, yet wherein

has architecture gone beyond their building of houses? What philosopher ever founded the like

republic? Whereas the horse, that comes so near man in understanding and is therefore so familiar

with him, is also partaker of his misery. For while he thinks it a shame to lose the race, it often

happens that he cracks his wind; and in the battle, while he contends for victory, he’s cut down

himself, and, together with his rider “lies biting the earth;” not to mention those strong bits, sharp

spurs, close stables, arms, blows, rider, and briefly, all that slavery he willingly submits to, while,

imitating those men of valor, he so eagerly strives to be revenged of the enemy. Than which how

much more were the life of flies or birds to be wished for, who living by the instinct of nature, look

no further than the present, if yet man would but let them alone in it. And if at anytime they chance

to be taken, and being shut up in cages endeavor to imitate our speaking, ’tis strange how they

degenerate from their native gaiety. So much better in every respect are the works of nature than

the adulteries of art.

In like manner I can never sufficiently praise that Pythagoras in a dunghill cock, who being but

one had been yet everything, a philosopher, a man, a woman, a king, a private man, a fish, a horse,

a frog, and, I believe too, a sponge; and at last concluded that no creature was more miserable than

man, for that all other creatures are content with those bounds that nature set them, only man

endeavors to exceed them. And again, among men he gives the precedency not to the learned or

the great, but the fool. Nor had that Gryllus less wit than Ulysses with his many counsels, who

chose rather to lie grunting in a hog sty than be exposed with the other to so many hazards. Nor

does Homer, that father of trifles, dissent from me; who not only called all men “wretched and full

of calamity,” but often his great pattern of wisdom, Ulysses, “miserable;” Paris, Ajax, and Achilles

nowhere. And why, I pray but that, like a cunning fellow and one that was his craft’s master, he

did nothing without the advice of Pallas? In a word he was too wise, and by that means ran wide

of nature. As therefore among men they are least happy that study wisdom, as being in this twice

fools, that when they are born men, they should yet so far forget their condition as to affect the life

of gods; and after the example of the giants, with their philosophical gimcracks make a war upon

nature: so they on the other side seem as little miserable as is possible who come nearest to beasts

and never attempt anything beyond man. Go to then, let’s try how demonstrable this is; not by

enthymemes or the imperfect syllogisms of the Stoics, but by plain, downright, and ordinary

examples.

And now, by the immortal gods! I think nothing more happy than that generation of men we

commonly call fools, idiots, lack-wits, and dolts; splendid titles too, as I conceive them. I’ll tell

you a thing, which at first perhaps may seem foolish and absurd, yet nothing more true. And first

they are not afraid of death—no small evil, by Jupiter! They are not tormented with the conscience

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Desiderius Erasmus

In Praise of Folly

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