Chapter 120
Wisdom and folly; the wise man; wisdom as the highest knowledge or guide of life.
596 passages · 170 principal · Covers the 49 volumes of primary texts
Wisdom is the name these books give to whatever is best in the mind of man. Sometimes they mean the highest knowledge, of causes, of good and evil, of eternal things or of God. Sometimes they mean the sound judgment that steers a life or a commonwealth. Its opposite, folly, runs through them as persistently, from Aesop’s fables to the Fool in *King Lear*. Few ideas are claimed so widely: philosophers, prophets, apostles, statesmen, essayists and the tellers of household tales all assume they know what wisdom is, and they very often disagree. The Harvard Classics therefore stage a long argument. Is wisdom knowledge or conduct? Is it human or divine, learned or given? Is it found in the sage’s self-sufficiency or in his confessed ignorance?
The first question is whether wisdom belongs to the intellect or to action. Plato places it in the soul that withdraws from the senses and communes with the unchanging1. He calls it the one true coin for which every other good should be exchanged, and the purifier of courage, temperance and justice2. Marcus Aurelius ranks the philosophers who knew things and their causes above conquerors, who were slaves to many cares3. George Long reports the Stoic definition: wisdom is knowledge of good and evil, first of the four virtues4.
Later writers sharpen the distinction the ancients drew loosely. Hobbes separates sapience from prudence. Much science is sapience, as much experience is prudence, and sapience alone is infallible5. Raleigh makes sapience the science of the absolute good and of eternal things6.
Confucius begins from the other side. For him wisdom is to know mankind and to exalt the straight over the crooked7, to foster right among the people while keeping aloof from spirits8, and to judge each case by its circumstances rather than by fixed rules9. The Gospel makes the same practical demand. Hearing without doing is building on sand10.
The moderns largely side with conduct. Locke defines wisdom as the able, foresighted management of affairs11. Penn places it in proportioning esteem to the nature of things and never inverting means and ends12, and in governing oneself by reason toward the morally and prudently best13. Franklin simply identifies wisdom with virtue14, and Burns calls prudent self-control “wisdom’s root”15. Kant offers a mediation. Wisdom lies more in conduct than in knowledge, yet it needs science to secure its precepts16.
From this follows a theme sounded nearly everywhere: wisdom is not learning. Thomas à Kempis sets the godly man illuminated by wisdom far above the scholar learned in books17. Montaigne reads to become wiser, not wittier or more eloquent18. Penn mocks men who are like dictionaries, full of words but without connection19. Milton holds that a wise man gleans gold from the drossiest book, while a fool stays a fool with the best20. Burke warns that eloquence may exist without wisdom21. Carlyle doubts that colleges are sources of wisdom at all22, and Tennyson observes that wisdom lags behind knowledge23.
Yet the direct question, what wisdom is, receives troubled answers. The chorus of the *Bacchae* asks it outright and answers with freedom from fear, patience, restraint of hate and the love of loveliness24. Teiresias in *Oedipus* laments that wisdom is a sad gift when knowledge brings no good25. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes goes furthest. He seeks wisdom and finds that much wisdom brings much grief26. Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness, yet wise man and fool meet the same end and are forgotten27. The poor wise man who saved the city is not remembered28. Marcus Aurelius, by contrast, finds nothing more agreeable than wisdom29. Milnes, centuries later, grants that the wise are wearier yet holds that wisdom has its own pleasures30.
A second large region concerns wisdom as divine. Job’s great chapter declares that wisdom cannot be found or bought, that her price is above rubies, and that God alone knows her place. To man God says that the fear of the Lord is wisdom31,32. The Psalms repeat that fear is the beginning of wisdom33. Greek tragedy echoes this from its own piety. *Antigone* closes by placing blessedness in wisdom and in shunning unholy pride toward the gods34. The *Bacchae* counts it true wisdom to fulfil God’s laws without thought beyond his will35. Cleanthes prays Zeus for the Wisdom by which he governs all36. In the Gita the Lord is “the wisdom of the wise”37 and Wisdom itself38.
Christian writers carry this furthest. Paul calls Christ the wisdom of God39 and speaks a hidden wisdom not of this world40. Augustine finds all its treasures hidden in Christ41. Browne calls wisdom God’s most beautiful attribute42. Pascal concludes that pride’s only proper object is wisdom, since God alone gives it43. Woolman, the Quaker, makes “pure wisdom” from God the soul’s sure guide in the daily use of goods44.
The divine view breeds a polemic against worldly wisdom. God has chosen the foolish to shame the wise, and the wise must become fools to be wise39,45. Such wisdom is hidden from the wise and revealed to babes46. Augustine applies this to the learned men who calculated eclipses but lacked humility47. Kempis calls worldly wisdom vanity and carnal-mindedness death48. Pascal says religion is foolish in its effective cause yet wise in its preparation49, and Woolman accepts gladly that he will seem foolish to the world50.
Bunyan dramatizes the contest. Mr. Worldly Wiseman of the town of Carnal Policy offers the burdened pilgrim prudent advice that would turn him aside51. Christiana’s neighbours scorn her as blind and foolish52. Roper’s More answers his wife, who calls him a fool for staying in prison, with a wiser view of worldly goods53.
The quarrel touches a related distinction, between wisdom and cunning. Homer has no embarrassment here. Athene praises Odysseus as first of men in counsel and guile54. The moderns divide what Homer joined. Bacon calls cunning “crooked wisdom,” differing from the wise man’s in honesty and ability, fit for practice but not counsel55. Locke11 and Penn56 both call cunning the ape of wisdom, and Penn adds that the cunning politician is falsely styled the world’s wise man57.
The folk tales celebrate something between the two. The Grimms’ little tailor overcomes giants by quick wit58,59. A peasant’s daughter solves the king’s riddle60. Aesop shows persuasion succeeding where force fails61. Milton’s Samson gives the obverse case: strength without a double share of wisdom is unwieldy and falls to the weakest subtleties62. Counterfeits are also exposed. Bacon describes pretenders who use solemn show to seem deep63, and Andersen’s princess takes the Shadow for the wisest of men because of what he knows64. Euripides adds a sharper charge. Cleverness that sets itself against heaven’s mysteries and inherited custom is not wisdom at all65,66,67.
Against every claim to possess wisdom stands Socrates. The oracle declared no man wiser. Examining the reputed wise, Socrates found they thought they knew what they did not, and concluded that his only advantage was not supposing he knew68,69. Only God is wise, and human wisdom is worth little or nothing70. Conceit of knowledge is disgraceful ignorance71.
This human wisdom has a long progeny. Sophocles’ Haemon says the wise learn and know when to yield72. Browne calls true wisdom Socratic humility73. Pope says to be wise is to know how little can be known74. Penn holds that the greatest understandings doubt most75. Hume’s wise man proportions belief to evidence76. Mill insists no one became wise except by collating his opinions with others’77.
Milton gives humility a different turn. Raphael bids Adam be “lowly wise,” and Adam concludes that the prime wisdom is knowing what lies before us in daily life78,79. Here modesty becomes a limit on inquiry. The astronomer Newcomb, in another spirit, leaves the extent of the universe to his successors80.
The portrait of the wise man himself runs from calm to self-sufficiency. The Gita’s sage is steady in joy and sorrow and master of himself81. Confucius says the wise are free from doubt82. Epictetus learns from Socrates never to blame God or man83, and Montaigne makes constant rejoicing the surest sign of wisdom84. Emerson raises the ideal highest. His wise man needs no army, church or statute book, since his character supersedes institutions85.
Such claims had critics early. Cicero’s Laelius rejects the philosophers’ wise man whom no mortal attains, preferring the practical wise men of the ancestors86. Cicero himself admits that philosophy cannot bear his grief87. Long finds the Stoics’ deification of the sage absurd88.
The wise man’s speech is likewise studied. Confucius holds that wisdom wastes neither men nor words89, and that a single word betrays a man’s wisdom or its lack90. Penn says silence is wisdom where speaking is folly91.
In public life wisdom becomes counsel. Dante’s Solomon asked for the wisdom fit for a king, not speculative subtleties92. Machiavelli holds that a wise prince is the source of good counsel, not its product93. More’s Utopia complains of councillors who think themselves too wise to hear advice94. Winthrop argues that fixed sentences leave no room for a judge’s wisdom95. Burke makes wisdom and virtue the sole qualifications for government96 and finds profound wisdom in proceeding by a presiding principle rather than bold haste97. Goethe notes that in prosperity everyone thinks himself wisest, while in disaster men look for the truly wise98.
How is wisdom acquired? Aeschylus gives the classic answer: Zeus ordains that men learn through suffering, and that suffering is a grace99. Wisdom is the child of pain100. Gray sets Wisdom in Adversity’s train101, and Penn calls adversity the school of wisdom102. Coleridge’s Wedding-Guest rises “a sadder and a wiser man”103. Locke stresses experience of the world above languages and sciences104.
Age is the disputed teacher. Homer reveres Nestor’s long wisdom105, and Cicero chooses his oldest speakers as his wisest106. Yet Elihu in Job argues that wisdom comes from the spirit in man, not from years107. The Psalmist claims God’s precepts make him wiser than his teachers and elders108.
Books meet a similar division. Epictetus observes that conversing with wise men no more makes one wise than conversing with the rich makes one rich109. Bacon says wise men use studies by a wisdom above them110, and Hobbes rejects the saying that wisdom comes from reading men rather than books111. A democratic strain answers the learned. Kant allows the common man to be wise without science112. Emerson holds that wisdom is common to the greatest and lowest113. Burke, quoting Ecclesiasticus, keeps it for those with leisure114.
The pursuit of wisdom is itself a theme. Plato’s philosopher expects pure wisdom only after death115. Augustine was set burning for wisdom by Cicero’s *Hortensius*116, yet he lamented years of lingering in vanities117. Schiller notes the paradox in philosophy’s name, that one must already be wise to love wisdom118. Carlyle bids students love wisdom piously and humbly beyond life itself119, and Newman calls the university a seat of wisdom120.
The Buddhist writings give wisdom a structural place as the crown of conduct and concentration. It makes the saint imperturbable as a rock in the wind121. When ignorance is abandoned, even meritorious karma ceases122. The Gita joins knowledge with action, so that the wise man sees action as rest and rest as action123.
Inherited wisdom provokes a properly modern debate. Burke advises seeking the latent wisdom in prejudices124. Sydney Smith calls the appeal to the wisdom of ancestors a perversion of words, since later ages have more experience125.
Folly, finally, illuminates wisdom by contrast. Its chief form is self-trust. Bunyan finds more hope for a fool than for one wise in his own conceit126. Epictetus scolds men who travel for office but never review their principles127, and Chaucer’s moral warns against heedless trust in flattery128. The tales multiply simpletons: Aesop’s ass129, Clever Elsie, whose absurd foresight is praised as understanding130, and the gullible wife whose husband sets out to find greater fools131.
Yet the despised simpleton may rule wisely132, and Lear’s Fool sees what the king does not133,134. Here the paradox of the wise fool reappears in secular dress. Luther plays the fool on Paul’s authority135. Webster’s Bosola calls the opinion of wisdom a disease, from whose subtlety the subtlest folly springs136.
Several questions remain open across these texts. Is wisdom the intellect’s highest attainment or the practical art of living? Is it given from above or earned through suffering? Can it be taught at all? Sainte-Beuve doubts it can137. And is the sage self-sufficient, or is he wise only in knowing he is not? The Preacher’s suspicion that wisdom may itself be vanity26 is never fully answered.
Introductory essay written by Claude Opus 5.5 from the outline and the notes on every passage below; quotations are checked against this edition.
See also: Knowledge 8c
See also: Madness 1c
See also: Religion 5d
See also: Courage 9b
See also: Education 9b
See also: Religion 14d · Desire 4c · Knowledge 1d · Virtue and Vice 11b
See also: Family 9d
See also: Virtue and Vice, Knowledge, God, Madness, Education, Religion