XVIII
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Wherefore among the other works of Providence this one must be regarded as worthy of all admiration. Heaven had many purposes in view in devising the winds and distributing them through all the varied quarters of the earth. The first object was to prevent the atmosphere from becoming gross; by their constant tossing the winds were meant to render it beneficial, a source of life to those who were to breathe it. In the second place, they were to supply the earth with rain, and at the same time to restrain excess of rain. This they accomplish by now gathering, now scattering the clouds, so that the rainfall should be fairly distributed over the whole world. The south wind drives it toward Italy, the north sends it back to Africa. The Etesian winds will not suffer the clouds to settle in our quarter; but yet the whole of India and Ethiopia are watered with constant rain during the period of their prevalence. Moreover, crops could not be gathered in unless the worthless elements were winnowed by the blast from the good grain with which it is mixed. The breeze is needed, too, to rouse the seed and bring to light the latent fruit, by causing it to burst through its covering, those wrappings which the farmers call follicles. Furthermore, the wind has established intercommunication among all the different nations, and has united tribes far removed from each other in place.
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A great service is this that nature here renders, did not man’s madness turn it to his own injury! As it is, the remark may be applied to the winds which was commonly made regarding Caesar the Elder (Julius), as recorded by Titus Livius (Livy); it was doubtful whether his birth was a blessing or a curse to the state. In like manner all the useful and necessary services performed by the winds cannot outweigh the devices which man’s madness has through them framed for his own destruction. But they do not cease to be inherently good, even though, through fault of those who degrade their use, they are turned to instruments of harm. Surely Providence and God, the great Disposer of the world, had a beneficent aim in establishing the winds, and diffusing them on every side, to wit, that the atmosphere might be kept in motion by them, that no part of the world should become unsightly through inactivity. His object was not that we might man our fleet with armed soldiers to seize every quarter of the main, and that we might go in search of foes either in or beyond the sea. What frenzy goads us on, and matches us in strife for our mutual destruction? We spread the sails to the winds to go in quest of war, and we run risks of sea for the sake of meeting risks of battle! We tempt the uncertainty of fortune, the force of tempests that no human effort can overcome, death without hope of burial. The prize would not be worth the toil if the voyage conducted us to peace. As it is, when we have passed so many hidden rocks and hidden shoals of a treacherous sea; when we have escaped the billows that rise like mountains above us, into which the raging wind forces all voyagers; when we have passed through days enveloped in mist, and nights rendered still more awful by cloud and thunder, and by whirlwinds that rend the frail bark in pieces; what reward shall we have for all the toil and anxiety? What harbour will give us hospitable shelter, worn out as we are with so many sufferings? War, I trow, will meet us, and an enemy ready prepared on shore and tribes destined to cruel slaughter, but not without much damage to the conqueror, and ancient cities in flames. Why do we press whole nations into arms? Why do we enrol armies to marshal their lines amid the billows? Why do we disquiet the seas? The land, I suppose, is not wide enough to compass our death. Fortune deals too tenderly with us: she has given us too hardy bodies, too sound health. No ravage of plague cuts us off: each one may comfortably fill up the measure of his years and reach the haven of old age. So let us launch upon the deep and call toward us the loitering fates. Poor wretches, what is it ye seek? Death, which is always too much with us? It will attack you, even in your couch; well, see that the victims it attacks are innocent of crime. It will seize you in your house; be sure it find you planning no mischief.
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But what can one call it but plain insanity actually to carry destruction in your train, to rush in anger against men you never saw, to lay waste without provocation all that comes in your path, and, after the fashion of wild beasts, to kill a man you do not hate? We are worse than beasts, for they bite only in retaliation or from hunger; but we, utterly lavish of our own and others’ blood, harass the seas by the vessels we launch, entrust our safety to the waves, and pray for favouring winds, counting it our good fortune to be borne in safety to the wars! To what lengths have our crimes hurried us criminals? It is not enough to vent one’s madness within one’s own sphere. Your stupid King of Persia must cross into Greece, filling it with an army with which he has failed to conquer it. Your Alexander, leaving behind Bactra and India, must needs seek to learn what lies beyond the great sea, and will chafe that there is any point beyond which he cannot go. Crassus in like manner will fall a prey to the Parthians through his lust of gold. He will not dread the imprecations of the tribune who calls him back, nor the storms of the tedious sea, nor the lightning by Euphrates that foretold destruction, nor the resistance of heaven itself. Through the wrath of man and God alike gold shall be sought.
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Not without good cause, therefore, it may be said that nature would have done better by us had she forbidden the winds to blow at all, had she checked their roaming abroad in their fury, and ordered each one to abide in his own land. If this had served no other end, at any rate the mischief of each human life would have been restricted to itself and its own nation. As it is, the ills of home are too little for us; we must toil to share those abroad as well. No land is so far removed from neighbours that it cannot send forth in some direction its evil propensities. How do I know but that some ruler of a great nation meantime concealed from view, swollen by fortune’s kindness, may choose not to confine his arms within the boundaries of his own realm, but with secret design may even now be fitting out his fleet against us? How can I tell whether this wind or that shall convey war to me? It would go far to ensure the peace of the world if the seas could be shut up.
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Still, as I said a little ago, we cannot put the blame on God, our Author, if we corrupt His blessings and turn them into curses. He gave us the winds to maintain the equable temperature of earth and sky, to call forth or to repress the waters, to nourish the produce of field and tree; the crops are brought to maturity, among other causes, by their mere tossing in the wind, which attracts the nourishment to the top, and by movement prevents the stagnation of decay. He gave the winds that we might gain acquaintance with foreign lands. Man would have been an untutored creature without much experience of the world if circumscribed by the bounds of his native soil. He gave the winds that the blessings of each region might become common to all; not to convey across the sea regiments of horse and foot, nor arms for the destruction of mankind. If we simply estimate nature’s boons by the degraded uses to which they have been put, there is nothing that we have not received for our own hurt. Who is aught the better of the gift of sight? or of speech? To whom is life itself not a torment? I defy you to find anything of such undoubted utility that it cannot by misuse be converted into a curse. So it is with the winds: nature had designed them for a boon; we have ourselves made them the opposite. They all lead us to some disaster: one man has not the same motive as his neighbour for putting to sea, but none has a good one. Diverse temptations lead us to essay the way. Above all, we love to go to sea in order to damage some one. Plato, with whose testimony I may close, has observed, with great aptness, it is mere trifles that men purchase with their lives. Yes, my dear Lucilius, if you estimate aright man’s madness, in other words, our own—for we all wallow in the same herd—you will be still more amused by the reflection that we amass for life what in the end wears life out.