Solemn Dissertation on the Philosophy of Silence

DE PHILOSOPHIA SILENTII.

com. 22. Luther original: "D. Lutherus" very beautifully portrays this confidence of the fool in his notes on Proverbs 30, verse 2, having made a comparison with the wise man: "Wise people," he says, "know that their wisdom is nothing; fools know everything and cannot err." Whatever flattery has heaped upon them, they seize as if it were a debt, according to the witness of Seneca, Epistle 59. As for the insults cast upon a respondent, if one does not answer, they are held as acknowledged. I respond: The philosophy of silence, whether by word of mouth or by writing, places a bridle on the respondent here and dictates that one should commit more to the judgment of good men than to the insolence of the insulter. Furthermore, by returning like for like to the insulter, one indeed compensates for the injury, but at the cost of a good conscience, and among more prudent men, even with danger to one's reputation, because one has rendered oneself equal to the insulter. Moreover, according to Ambrose, Book 1, On Duties, chap. 5, he is a sinner who has vomited up insults and thus provoked the respondent. But just as a sinner is not to be confirmed in his sin, so the insulter is to be deterred by silence so that he understands he is being mocked. Again, Zeno the Citiean, whom I have not been ashamed to cite quite often, when asked what his state of mind was toward insults, said to the point: "As if an ambassador were being sent back without an answer." For what cannot be broken by responding is dismissed by keeping silent. Finally, nothing has ever existed that harmed philosophy as a whole more vehemently than that libido for insulting which is most poorly received among certain philosophers. Hence it also extorted these words from Seneca in Epistle 52: "There will be no doubt that philosophy has suffered damage once it has been prostituted; but it can be shown in its inner sanctums, provided it has found not a merchant, but a high priest."

§. XVII.